Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Some of it might depends on what comes next. I had to shake myself there because for wee second I thought I was at a Traditional Unionist Voice party conference as opposed to in the Oireachtas listening to some of the previous contributions but there you go and here we are.

This is without question the strangest use of Private Members' time I have witnessed since being elected to the Seanad in 2016. The motion before us surely represents the first time a political party is being criticised for adhering to its legal requirements. This debate, it seems, will not be about facts, or has not been thus far. Rather it has been about alternative facts. It is an attempt by Fine Gael somehow to suggest that adhering to one's legal requirements is something to be sniffed at. It is not. Sinn Féin takes our requirements very seriously and let me state the facts very clearly. Sinn Féin is an all-Ireland party. We are lawfully obliged to register as a political party in both jurisdictions on this island and to comply with relevant legislation and statutory regulations North and South. This state of affairs is a consequence of partition. If only it were not so but it is. It is the objective of Sinn Féin to dismantle partition and unite our country. We want to end policy disparity on the island.Instead of joining with us in that endeavour, those in Fine Gael and now Fianna Fáil, the artist formerly known as the republican party, tell us that such an objective is divisive. They tell us that it is contentious. They say, no, not yet but maybe in 30 years' time we can start to talk about it. That is their view but they are not shy about exploiting partition to play cheap and cynical political games like we are seeing here tonight because that is what this motion is all about.

Senator Ward is a barrister so understands that partition means that there are two legal systems on this island. He also knows full well that Sinn Féin meets all of its legal requirements. That Sinn Féin received a significant donation from a party supporter who died has been a matter of public knowledge for well over a year. We have made it clear repeatedly that this donation will only be spent in the North. We are in full compliance with the requirements of the Electoral Commission in the North. The Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, here in the South has confirmed to us that the subject matter of this donation is closed. The proposers wanted transparency and there is the transparency.

Fine Gael often boasts that it is the party of law and order. It is more like the party of law and order that now attacks Sinn Féin for what, I hear one ask, adhering to the law. If Fine Gael is serious about giving SIPO new powers then why did it not start by giving SIPO the powers that it actually wants. A former Fine Gael Member of this House, Michael D'Arcy, resigned recently to become a corporate lobbyist. In order to further regulate corporate lobbying, SIPO made a total of 22 separate recommendations during a review of the lobbying laws and asked for stronger legislative powers. None of those recommendations has been implemented. None of them has been proposed in Fine Gael's Private Members' time this afternoon because that would mean upsetting Fine Gael's friends in the banking sector and the world of high finance, the insiders, their mates or their "muckers", as we call them in Béal Feirste. That is the reality. Do not get me started on the blind hypocrisy of a number of Fine Gael Senators who have spoken or added their names to this particular motion. One of them, Senator Ward, when he was a councillor, claimed over €10,000 of public moneys for a college course. This drew sharp criticism from the Standards in Public Office Commission and rightly so. Why, because SIPO legislation did not, I repeat did not, allow for councillors to claim the cost of third level degree courses. Did Barry Ward ever pay that money back? Did he even consider it? If we are in the business of full transparency then that question should be answered. He is choosing not to, some buachaill.