Rónán Mullen (Independent)

----is with regard to corporate donations. If we are serious about making politics better, then we should be having a much more courageous look at corporate donations. Merely providing for registration is not the way to go.

When it comes to the question of public funding of political parties, there are questions to be answered there as well. I welcome what Senator Mac Conghail had to say. If I were to be asked which is the greater evil, the public funding of political parties or the absence of corporate donations, I would have to say that public funding and corporate donations raise issues that in my view are more serious than the absence of gender quotas. Notwithstanding Senator Bacik's attempts to reassure us, in my view, there is a constitutional issue. I am in agreement with her colleague in the Dáil, Deputy Joanna Tuffy, and I am with our former Tánaiste and Attorney General, Michael McDowell, who have pointed to serious problems with this Bill. I also note comments made by Dr. Eoin Daly regarding freedom of association. He has posed a question as to whether constitutional freedom of association protects the internal organisational autonomy of political parties.

Mr. Michael McDowell, in his inimical fashion, points out the far simpler and more obvious course for those Government parties, which have a massive majority in the Dáil, would be to amend their own rules, so as to give effect to gender quotas. If one wants to change the world, perhaps one should start by changing oneself.