Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

How can that be justified? There is a list of the prescribed expenses and what the money is to be spent on, namely, the general administration of the parliamentary activities, the provision of technical or specialist advice, research and training, policy formulation, consultancy services, polling or public attitude sampling and so on. The €23,000 or €24,000 of taxpayers' money being allocated via me to the Fine Gael Party should be simply returned to the taxpayer.

The Minister, Deputy Howlin, is the Minister with responsibility for reform and this Bill is part of the Government's proposal for reform. The Minister described it as being about financial propriety and democratic reform. He cannot stand over allowing the political parties to keep taxpayers' money to which they are not entitled. There is a formula for deciding how much each party gets. It is on the basis of the number of members they have within the parliamentary party, admittedly as elected, but events bring about certain changes. At best, it is politically immoral that moneys in respect of those of us who are now Independent Members of the Dáil or the Seanad should be paid to a political party. There is also a constitutional question about this. Every citizen is entitled to equality under the Constitution. Why should money being paid by the taxpayer in respect of my membership of the Oireachtas be handed over to a political party, the parliamentary party of which I am no longer a member? The Minister may not have a chance today to address that quandary. I know it is the way the law was framed many years ago but we now have to be realistic. If we are talking about transparency, fairness, accountability, openness and democratic reform as the Minister mentioned, how can anybody justify that money not being returned to the taxpayer? I will leave it at that. I thank the Acting Chairman for allowing me to make that point. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. It is an issue we will take up on Committee and Report Stages but I ask the Minister to respond to it with common sense and fairness and to make the necessary amendment to provide that taxpayers will have their money returned to them.