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

Let me be very clear. I have no knowledge of Deputy McAuliffe's constituency financing. I am not making any inference about what he has or has not done or what moneys he has or has not benefited from; what I am saying is that if it is the case that €500,000 that Fianna Fáil raised last year under the April–May lottery licence was raised outside the lotteries Act, and therefore illegally, and if any member of his party benefited from that, the public has a right to know. If Deputy McAuliffe has not benefited, he should just clarify that now and the matter will be absolutely closed.

It is really important to note that this runs to the very centre of why we make laws around party financing. If it is the case that, as my colleagues, other members of the Opposition and I have alleged or asserted, the only reason for this change to the law is that one party broke the law, got away with it once, got caught the second time, had to refund the money and now wants to repeat the exercise, that is a problem for us. Let us be very honest about it. It is not about, as in Deputy McAuliffe's very dismissive phrase, a Facebook clip; it is about how we make our laws on crucial issues of party financing. Neither the Deputy, with whom I have had a very good relationship on this and other Bills-----

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