Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I support these amendments. I note amendment No. 10 inserts the clause "whether the donation was requested from the donor, and if so, the name and postal address of the person who requested the donation". That is quite significant in light of the reports of the Mahon tribunal, especially as they applied to local politicians in the early 1990s. It is sometimes forgotten that all of the details of the tribunal's findings related to a window of time that goes back 18 years. While that does not make it right, there is sometimes the view that it happened last week or was still going on when in fact it was from 1992 to 1995.

Politicians on all sides found themselves in a difficult situation with the tribunal's conclusions relating to donations made at that time. In a significant number of cases, the donations were unsolicited. Despite that fact, the tribunal came to a particular conclusion that not all of us necessarily agreed with in terms of the impact it had on the individuals concerned. Much has happened since then that has changed sentiment and attitudes. However, during that time it was not breaking the law when one received an unsolicited donation through the post. These donations were used legitimately at local elections by politicians to fund their democratic right to stand for election, not put into the back pocket for holidays.

It is quite significant that this amendment has been made. If there are ever similar investigations in the future - although I hope it will never happen again - at least the law has now established as a relevance that a donation could have been unsolicited, which could have a great bearing on the outcome of any conclusions.

I am not necessarily requesting a response from the Minister on this. I just wanted to put the observation forward.