John Ellis (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey, who is here in place of the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Kitt, and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley. Controls on election spending are long overdue. Abuse of spending at every election and referendum during the past ten years has been rampant. If the posters that some groups put up during the Lisbon treaty referendum campaign were only 5 cent each, they would have been outside the spending limits despite the fact that they claimed they finished within the limits. They drove the proverbial coach and four through all the regulations made by the Oireachtas.

Introducing controls on the amount of money to be spent by candidates levels the playing pitch. As Senator Hannigan stated, we have seen candidates spend enormous amounts of money and not succeed. We have also seen candidates who spend much smaller or nominal sums succeeding. Local elections are about local issues and local people. Particularly in rural Ireland, people can identify their local councillors and local newspapers identify the local candidates. However, in the city it is not as easy for candidates to project themselves. They do not have the same access to local radio or newspapers. This justifies their entitlement to spend more.

We will see abuses of these spending regulations and we have seen it already. In his speech, the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Kitt, stated that notices for public meetings can be left up for 30 days. Today in this city, I saw posters for a public meeting with a picture of a candidate on them. I do not know what date the meeting will take place but I know the posters are designed in such a way that when the public meeting is over the stickers advertising it can be whipped off and the posters will become election posters. The candidate will take the 30 days, which will bring him close to the pre-election period. This is where already a coach and four is being driven through the legislation.

Seeing this being done will lead people to think that if this is the attitude being taken, what will be the attitude of other candidates. This is a grave concern. Most politicians get seven days' notice for a public meeting. One is told to turn up and if one cannot do so, so be it, and one will be criticised and ridiculed from the high heavens. To allow 30 days for notice of a public meeting is wrong. It should have been restricted to a maximum of 14 days. This would give people sufficient time to arrange all the public meetings they want.

All of us have run into trouble after elections with regard to litter pollution. We are all aware of the odd individual who gathers up a few posters belonging to the other side for some devious purpose and who, ten days after the poll, will stick them up where they were never seen before. One then receives a fine for litter and one can do nothing about it. This has happened and it needs to be addressed.

Another issue that must be addressed is that every election poster and leaflet should have proper identification on it with regard to who printed and circulated it and anybody found guilty of not doing so should be penalised very severely. I know this might not be the easiest rule in the world to enforce but it needs to be done. During the most recent referendum campaign, we saw that certain groups put up posters with no information on who supplied them or put them up or what purpose they served other than to confuse the electorate. This needs to be addressed in the context of legislation on elections.

With regard to local elections, various attitudes are taken in various parts of the country. In the local electoral area in which I live in Leitrim no posters were erected by any candidate in the previous two local elections. All candidates agreed they would not do so. Afterwards I asked some of them whether this affected them and they stated that it did not because they had the advantage of local recognition. Some of them had been there for some time and the area covers a maximum of 20 square miles. The candidates received plaudits from all the tidy towns committees, which were delighted. In other areas, tidy towns committees spent all their time complaining about posters affecting them when it came to assessment, and rightly so.

The amounts of money being spent in local elections have been mentioned. Some of the amounts which one hears have been spent by candidates are phenomenal. However, candidates have an opportunity to circumvent the limits by spending prior to the date from which all spending is to be counted. This is one of the concerns I have as it provides an advantage to those with major resources.

At present, the political parties may not be the best resourced. Some of the fringe groups in this country are better resourced than the political parties. They are in a position to spend and not account for it. This concerns me with regard to local and general elections, referenda and every other type of election that takes place. If we cannot put in place proper controls the coach and four will be driven through many of these projects on a regular basis. We have seen this happen and I mentioned the referendum campaign on the Lisbon treaty during which the coach and four was driven through all the electoral rules.

I hope that in future we will have a full electoral Bill which will deal with all expenditure, nomination of candidates, sourcing of funds and documentary proof of where they come from. At present one makes one's return with proper invoices and that is it. Nobody can tell whether Joe Bloggs printed 500 or 1,000 posters. If a receipt for 500 posters is produced nobody will count to see where the other 500 went. Physically, it cannot and will not be done. The coach and four is being driven through this legislation. Perhaps it should be mandatory that those who print should be forced to register with the Department or the Electoral Commission prior to being able to print election literature. This would be one way to prevent abuse of the system. We need this because over the years we have seen people and parties abuse it and we can do nothing about it. We just have to accept it. I believe there will be much tighter scrutiny at the forthcoming local elections. I have no doubt that the candidates will be more prudent in their spending due to the recession. There will be no bouquets for those who run lavish campaigns in the local elections because that will be like giving two fingers to those who are suffering in the current economic downturn. It is something that will definitely have to be examined by the Department.

We have all spoken about the nomination of candidates, and there should be no problem with this. In the old days, one could sign one's own nomination paper for a local election, even if one was a non-party candidate, but one could also be nominated by someone else. In my early days, it was important that the local senior party activist was on the nomination paper. In modern days, candidates have nominated themselves. Independents should have the right to nominate themselves and nothing should be done to prevent them from doing so, as long as they stand legitimately and they have an affinity with the area in which they wish to stand. There are changes in this Bill on how people are nominated and the nomination procedure has been tidied up, but every citizen of this country has the right to stand in a local election.

People realise that many of our migrant workers are now eligible to vote in local elections. In some parts of the country, there is practically a quota of votes in council areas that is made up of economic migrants or refugees. It is an opportunity for them to get a voice when it comes to local politics and to be able to make a contribution. Many of them have come from countries where they were not able to make a contribution and they had to put up with whatever system was there, which sometimes was not democratic. The important thing is that the regulations laid down in this Bill are fully implemented and that the resources are put in place to ensure that is done.