Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----enough of that. It is not a payment to be divvied out among the members for their own use. In order to calculate the level of support which will be paid to a party it was decided to base the total amount of funding on the number of Deputies and Senators elected or nominated to each of the Houses. Other funding sources use different metrics, as I explained, such as the share of first preference votes used in the case of electoral supports but this is the method used to support parliamentary activity in the House.

As there are economies of scale for larger parties a flat rate per member would give large parties an advantage. That is the reason it is a sliding scale - the more members the party has, the less the marginal amount. It is to ensure that even small parties would have a coherent sum of money to provide the press office, the basic research and so on rather than over-advantage larger parties. That is the way it works.

Similarly, the reduction of one third of the allowance payable in respect of Deputies applies to parties in government. Even when we rebalance for scale we rebalance against parties in government because it is assumed they have additionality in terms of governmental supports that Opposition parties do not have, and that is the reason they are reduced by one third.

The legislation provides for a calculation based on a certain number of members. It does not prescribe the amount to be spent in regard to individual members by a party, nor should it. It is a matter for the party to determine. It is a pool of resources for parliamentary activities and whether they want to use it primarily for primary research or more of it for public analysis - people do focus groups, public seminars and so - that is a matter for the parties.

That is the reason the mechanism is in place. Parties provide a stable basis for the formation of both Governments and effective opposition. That is not to be in any way disparaging of Independent Members of either House who have played historically a very important part but the basic units to form a stable Government here and in most western democracies is a political party.

It is the nature of political parties that members join and members leave, often for the best and most honourable of motives. It would be wrong if a situation resulting from the internal issues of a party could lead to a change in the balance of supports to political parties. Losing or gaining members in the lifetime of a Dáil or Seanad should not affect the resources to the party. As I said on the last occasion, parties make a determination.

They construct a support and staff base. They sign contracts and it cannot be that this would be dislodged because it would be an internal change in the middle of a parliament.

It is the vote of the people that determines who is elected to the Dáil and that of the panels and selection criteria who becomes a Member of the Seanad. That is determined on election day. The parliamentary support system is put into place on that basis and in my judgment it cannot be dislodged in the life of that Parliament without reference back to the people. While I am aware that the proposers of this amendment intend that the money would go back to the Exchequer it is then money lost to parliamentary activity which is important.

I recall during the debate on the funding of politics - and I will not refer to some of the unseemly things that happened such as quanta of money being paid to the party political system or individuals - we tried to change all of that with ethics legislation and electoral law change and the suite of measures that we brought in during the 1990s. The quid pro quowas that since we would prohibit that sort of funding of political parties there would be State funding, not only for political parties but for parliamentary activity, which could not be funded in any other way. It would also be done transparently so that if a candidate followed the agenda of a person with deep pockets that person could not endow the candidate to the extent of giving him or her an electoral advantage. That is my view. That set of proposals has been resilient up to now and for that reason I am not minded to accept the amendment.