Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are a couple of things that need to be said. We heard a defence from our Fianna Fáil colleague, asking what is wrong with his "mother and father each putting €50 into a Fianna Fáil raffle". He suggested that this is about raffles, draws and all the rest. That is fine and there is nothing wrong with that. If someone's mum wants to give them €50, first, she does not need to buy a ticket - she can give it as a donation in the first instance. The second thing is that all political parties operate under lottery permits. However, the limit for a ticket under a lottery permit is €10, and someone’s mum can buy five or ten of them if she wants. She can actually buy up to €2,500 worth if she wants to donate to the party. This measure is about allowing prize tickets of an unlimited nature and prize funds of an unlimited nature. I just want to make that point.

I want to pick up on something the Minister of State said which is wrong. This is a new source of funding. This goes to the core of the issue. Let me be clear. The only political party that went for a lottery licence last year, which is not currently allowed under law but the Government is now going to make it legal, was Fianna Fáil. Fine Gael operated under a lottery permit, with a €10 ticket and a weekly prize fund of no more than €5,000. Sinn Féin operated under a lottery permit. I am sure that if the Labour Party raised money last year, it operated under a lottery permit, and the same for the Social Democrats. It is not as if that creates huge limitations. Fine Gael under lottery permits raised over €1 million in its draw, and it had a lottery permit last year. Fianna Fáil went twice to the courts for a lottery licence. In the 1980s, a superintendent in Enniscorthy, County Wexford objected to the Fianna Fáil Enniscorthy cumann and took the case to the Supreme Court, and was proved right. The Gurhy v. Goff judgment in the Supreme Court held. Fianna Fáil knew all about it because not many political parties were taken to the Supreme Court by the Garda Síochána. Fianna Fáil was applying to raise money by pretending to be a charity, but that was found not to be true. The Supreme Court overturned the District Court decision to grant the licence at that time. It was a significant ruling.

There are massive questions here because somebody filled out an application form that is only available for charities or philanthropic groups, and claimed to be one of those. One could argue that people should know this but if they go to the District Court, they may not know what happened 30 or 40 years ago. The person presenting that document to the court has an obligation not to mislead the court so there is a serious issue there. That is the first point.

The second point is that the second Fianna Fáil draw - the early bird Christmas draw, as it was called - was to be held on 16 December, but it was called off and money was refunded. That is not an easy task but we are told that money was refunded to everybody who bought tickets. It was called off, but why? It was because Chay Bowes took legal action against Fianna Fáil. The same Chay Bowes made the complaint against the Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar, on which those in the DPP are doing their job to assess whether they will prosecute at the current time, which is up to them. As he was corresponding with Fianna Fáil and informing them he was taking legal action, they had no option. They could have had an option. They could have said what the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, said on the floor of the Dáil, namely, “Everything we are doing is legal.” If it was legal, why would they cancel the draw and refund all the money that they made? It was not legal. They misled the court. They were raising money illegally. That is why they took the drastic measure in December of immediately saying, once they got the letter, “We are caught folks, cancel the draw and refund every penny that was paid.” That is what happened. I am sure Deputies in this House all sold tickets, or at least the majority of them did.

The core issue is this. What happened to the draw that took place on 24 June last year? That was their super-draw. If we look at it, Fianna Fáil Deputies all had their own pieces on their webpages promoting the super-draw, where we were told by Fianna Fáil that they got a licence through the courts. Again, as I said earlier, it could only be by misleading the court because a lottery licence cannot be given to a political party, and there are conditions even if it is given to the political party. Let me clarify that. Sinn Féin can go into court and apply for a lottery licence and say we want a lottery licence and we are giving the money to the Irish Cancer Society, and that is fine. The licence will be granted and we give the money to the Irish Cancer Society, but we could not use it for our own means. The conditions are very clear in that regard. On 24 June, they had their super-draw and it is estimated they raised over €500,000.

Deputy McAuliffe might brush it off and say it is not an issue for him but I ask him to imagine if a criminal went before the courts, as any individual is allowed to do, to apply for a lottery licence, saying he wanted to raise money and was going to give the money to charity, thereby complying with the conditions. If we found out that person who misled the courts actually did not give a bob to charity and kept all the money for themselves, what would we say? Would we just turn a blind eye or would we say that needs to be prosecuted, that needs to be dealt with?

The reason I raise this issue in terms of the Taoiseach is not just because he is the Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil, but because he is the trustee of the party. He is more than just the leader of Fianna Fáil. He is the trustee of Fianna Fáil, which is a very significant issue in terms of fundraising for the party. Indeed, their audited accounts will have his signature on them. It is a serious issue of massive magnitude that we have the leader of this State actively promoting at Christmas a draw which had to be cancelled and money refunded, and that he actively promoted, as trustee and leader of his party, a draw which raised over €500,000, which we know could only have happened by illegal means because a political party could not get a lottery licence.

That brings us back to the point about the licence. We know Fianna Fáil had a licence for their Christmas draw that they had to refund. How do we know it? It is because the courts have to hold a register of licences and, indeed, amendment No. 101 states very clearly that the District Court will have to keep a register of lottery licences that can be inspected by the public. Therefore, anyone can go into the court system and see the licence that was granted to them in September that, again, they had to withdraw. However, there is no record anywhere in the District Court of the licence that was granted for their super-draw for June. It does not exist. We are only taking the word of Fianna Fáil that they had a licence.

Why is that significant? Fianna Fáil can clear this up straightaway by publishing the licence and the application, first, to clarify that they had a licence. Then, if they are to comply with the legislation, which means the money has to go to charity, the only way they can comply with section 28A of the Gaming and Lotteries Act is by giving that money to charity. Why is it significant if they did not have a licence or this licence is not to be found? All of the licences are there in the Dublin Circuit Court but this Fianna Fáil one is not there. When people went to the court, they could not find it. It is not online, it is not physical, it is nowhere to be got. Why is it significant? It is because, as was mentioned earlier, members of that political party had their own page on the website promoting this draw. It is quite significant because section 26 of the Act states:

(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, a person shall not promote a lottery unless he or she is, or is the employee or agent acting as such of, a person who is the holder of a lottery permit or a lottery licence that is for the time being in force and the lottery is conducted in accordance with the permit or licence.

(2) A person who contravenes this section shall be guilty of an offence.

What does that mean? It means that as bad as it was that Fianna Fáil raised €500,000 illegally, they need to do something with that money. It is not going to be brushed under the carpet because this is a massive scandal.

If members of the party, maybe unknowingly, were promoting that draw and it was a draw without a licence, they were also committing an offence. This is extremely significant. The Minister of State may get to his feet again and say the core of this legislation is about transparency and that it is about this and that. We accept that. We are supporting this legislation and we supported the Government amendments but this is different. As I said, Fine Gael raised €1 million on a lottery permit. It did not go for a lottery licence. This only benefits one political party. In a way, it gives a semblance that what happened last year, which was of such significance, was somehow okay because we are going to make it legal in the future. If the Minister of State believes he can sit there and accept that a political party in this State, now that he knows all the facts, raised more than €500,000 that will be spent on influencing the electoral process and trying to put its own party ahead, then that is fine if that is his view and that of the Green Party. However, he should not stand here and tell me this Bill is about transparency and accountability. Where is the accountability in terms of what has happened? Has the Minister of State even raised it with Fianna Fáil? Who came to the Minister of State and asked for this amendment? We all know. Will the Minister of State tell us? I will give way under Standing Orders if he wants to tell us who asked for this amendment because it was not Sinn Féin and I am sure it was not the other parties here. If this happened in other jurisdictions, we would be talking about it but this is happening right here, right now.

It is unfortunate for the Minister of State that his coalition colleagues are involved in this. I spoke earlier about the shoe being on the other foot. Deputy McAuliffe said what it is doing is legal and that we might not accept but that it is playing by the rules, whatever rules exist. However, what happened here with Fianna Fáil was downright illegal. It was so illegal that the Supreme Court told it so in the 1990s when it tried it at that time. However, it proceeded to do it in 2011 and it got away with it. It tried it again but Chay Bowes stood in its way and it took immediate and drastic action. Within 24 hours of that letter being issued, it cancelled the draw, pushed the button and sent cheques out to everybody because it knew it was illegal. It was caught out. The leader of that party is our Taoiseach. He is the trustee of the party and there are massive questions.

In terms of whether the Minister of State thinks it is okay for political parties to raise money illegally, there is no problem with any political party raising money legally, within the donation limits and under the lotteries and gaming legislation, but when political parties raise it illegally, it is a different matter. It is over to the Minister of State and to Fianna Fáil, but this issue is not going away because it is of such significance that accountability has to happen. If the Minister of State is bringing forward legislation which is about transparency and accountability, he should first bring accountability and transparency to what happened last year before trying to bring in an amendment which is about covering up the stroke and the nature of what happened last year.

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