Eamon Scanlon (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. I thank the staff of the Standards in Public Office Commissioner for the work they have done. It was a difficult job and I can only imagine the difficulties they encountered.

We need a complete overhaul of our electoral spending laws. We also need to increase spending limits. The system should be fully transparent and accountable. It needs to be clearer, more concise and more easily understood by all. Problems have arisen from the complexity of existing legislation. The Standards in Public Office Commission has pointed to the difficulties faced by those attempting to comply with the regulations.

The Government is committed to full and open accountability in electoral spending. I agree with the Taoiseach that the present system is designed to make sure the Dáil is full of millionaires. It is a terrible system and totally unworkable. Wealthy Deputies can spend a fortune of their money until the campaign is announced, whereas an individual with little or no money has to fight a three-week campaign.

I was a candidate in the last general election in the rural region of south Sligo and have never seen, heard, asked for or received a corporate donation. The ordinary people of the area supported my election campaign. We held four or five functions in local bars and lounges, which is where the money I used came from.

Transparency of donations is more important than their size. The scale of Irish corporate donations is modest by international standards. The spending by political parties keeps people who work in printing companies in jobs. I know this from working on Seanad, Dáil and county council elections since 1977. The system of confining election spending records to within three weeks of a poll is a nonsense and completely unjustified. I want a unified system to account for all donations which would distinguish between corporate and personal donations. Do my Labour Party colleagues want the taxpayer to pick up the tab?