Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is a fundamental concept of law that citizens cannot know whether it is a mandatory code, a voluntary code or just a code. We cannot have that level of ambiguity in legislation and it is fundamentally wrong for the Minister of State to bring this before us.

I will link this to another point. I did not deal with the Bill originally; my colleague Deputy Nash did so. He wrote to the Minister of State a week ago on another matter, relating to an amendment we have tabled that is unlikely to be reached, which the Minister has explained to the House has a meaning that clearly is not encompassed in the draft he has put before us. We will not have time to reach that amendment. This relates to the serious matter of the obtaining of foreign donations for a political party. It is clearly the intention of the Minister, as he stated, that any moneys accrued from a fundraiser in New York, for example, could not be expended in the State. If we pass the amendments that have been laid before the House, however - amendments that we will not have a chance to read - it will be possible for those donations to be expended in this jurisdiction, despite the explanation of the Minister. My colleague, Deputy Nash, wrote to the Minister of State a week ago on this issue but we have not had the courtesy of a reply despite the fact that the Bill is being bulldozed through. This is a bad way to make important laws that affect the very functioning of our democracy.

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