Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Ceann Comhairle is absolutely right; it is not for Ministers to interpret the law. It is reasonable, however, for the Opposition to ask Government to explain why it is changing certain laws, to clarify the changes it is making, the origins of those changes, who asked for them, when they asked for them, for what purposes and what the consequences would be. That is what Deputy Carthy was doing, and I fully support him in that.

I also agree with the Ceann Comhairle that we have a very limited amount of time to do this and that is deeply regrettable. It is not the Ceann Comhairle's fault at all. We probably spent as much time on this Bill as almost any other Bill in our committee, bar the maritime area planning legislation. At no stage did the Government say it wanted to reform general party financing. If Government approached the Opposition and said it would like to do that, I think we would all be open to having it as a separate, stand-alone matter. We did ask for the motion that was presented earlier for the non-consequential amendments to be taken with debate and that was not possible. We are left in a position of having to have a debate, not because we have chosen to but because Government has tabled amendments that have nothing to do with this legislation and this is our only opportunity to tease it out.

I will respond very briefly to the Minister of State and to Deputy McAuliffe. I asked the Minister of State some very reasonable questions about these amendments. Who asked for them? What is the origin of these amendments? A lot of the debate we have had around the Bill is due to the fact that for many years many people have asked for reasonable modernising reforms to the legislation. We spent lots of time talking about that yet the Minister of State was not willing to tell us who asked for this, when they asked for it, or why.

I also asked in my initial comments why something that has nothing to do with electoral reform or the integrity of our electoral systems is being added in at the last minute. Non-consequential amendments, as I generally understand them from my limited number of years in the Oireachtas, are generally proposed when something of an emergency nature comes up, not when it is just a standard, general reform or change on some other matter. For example, we are going to be dealing with changes to the fair deal scheme tagged on to the construction industry register legislation because we have to try to accelerate the acquisition of private rental properties. We have all agreed that is a sensible thing. I do not believe the intention of non-consequential amendments is to simply tag on other, more general reforms that are not time-bound by anything. There is no urgency around this particular change. It does not have to happen now. It could happen in six months or a year. In view, the Government is misusing the non-consequential amendment procedure and that is very regrettable.

I always speak sincerely on these matters. The Minister of State does himself no favours when he tries to present the very legitimate criticisms of our party and the other Opposition parties in a dismissive manner or as anything other than deeply sincere. I am disappointed by his separate but related comments on NGO funding. Lumping it into a comprehensive review of that other legislation will mean that we will not see light of it for quite some time. We will work with the Minister of State on it and I take him at his word. I want to put it on record that I always get nervous when we are told something is part of a more comprehensive review. The Bill before us was part of a comprehensive review. The Ceann Comhairle probably has more knowledge of the longevity of that debate than most of us. It goes back several decades but we will deal with that separately.

With respect to Deputy McAuliffe, I think he missed the core point of what we are saying. We accepted, warmly and enthusiastically, all the amendments in relation to party financing that the Government brought forward.

We even engaged with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, on one particular aspect of them. He tabled a very sensible amendment on the €100 threshold as a result of concerns we raised. Therefore, there is no difficulty in our party supporting the maximum level of transparency and accountability when it comes to party financing and funding in this State and the North, or anywhere else for that matter.

The problem is that this amendment under discussion is trying to retrospectively make a change to the law to cover up for the fact that, on two occasions, one political party broke that law. My question to Deputy McAuliffe is on whether he benefited from the licence that in my strong view was obtained in contravention of the law in April and May of last year. Did he benefit from moneys raised from that, moneys that I believe were raised outside the scope of the lotteries Act as it currently operates? That is a reasonable question because it is directly related to the question of why one would or would not support this Bill.

I am quite proud of the fact that my colleague Deputy Ward and I are probably two of the cheapest Deputies in the House. I am not referring to our expenditure in our personal lives but to the fact that we spend far less money getting ourselves elected than most other Deputies. Every single penny we raise in my constituency, as is the case in Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Dublin South-Central, is raised in full accordance with the laws of this State. I am sure that when other members of the Opposition speak, they will confirm that, but there is a question mark over Deputy McAuliffe and his colleagues if €500,000-----

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