Seanad debates
Wednesday, 18 June 2003
Election Expenses: Motion.
There are three other areas which need review following last week's publication of the 2002 general election expenditure. The 1997 Act provided for all election expenses incurred at any time before the issue of the writ. Are we to measure what is spent in the three weeks of an election campaign or a longer period? In the UK they regard the period of expenditure control as lasting for 365 days. It is a case of how we do it. It would be wrong just to measure expenditure on leaflets and to ignore other people's exposure through airtime or whatever. There is a whole area to be looked at. The rule needs to be examined and the best way of doing that is in co-operation with all the political parties.
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