Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing my time with Senator Sherlock.

I am somewhat dismayed to be here listening to what seems to be the defining political narrative of this Oireachtas, which involves Sinn Féin taking a populist pop at Fine Gael over elitism and Fine Gael bouncing back with a swipe at Sinn Féin over underhand tactics. The rest of us are caught in this arrangement that is mutually beneficial to both parties. A confidence motion in an individual took up Dáil time yesterday and now we have this issue, which involves one party taking up our time. It gives energy to the Sinn Féin and Fine Gael benches but, as Senator Byrne said, it can be quite draining. What is happening is taking place at the expense of policy.

It is important, however, to speak to the wider issue of money and politics, including how money can influence politics. The donation from the estate of William Hampton to what he defines in his will as the political party operating in the Republic of Ireland known as Sinn Féin has exposed a loophole in our donation system and it is a warning shot indicating what might happen if we do not close it. The issue here is not what one political party does; it is the bigger, more general issue of one person making a donation so large that it could reasonably influence our electoral system, and of somebody with access to a significant amount of cash being able to fund his or her pet political party or project. Sinn Féin will argue that this is not the case and that it did not ask for the donation, but it has the power to decide what it is going to do with it. It has decided to go against the spirit of the law in the Republic of Ireland by keeping it.

Let me give a couple of hypothetical examples. If somebody living on an offshore island and with Irish business interests decided to donate money to Fianna Fáil's sister party, the SDLP, which was registered, and it in turn decided to give money to Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin would be jumping up and down. It would be right. That is essentially what is happening here. Sinn Féin does not have a leg to stand on regarding money in politics and elitism if it accepts a donation when it suits it and if it is saying it is acceptable for other parties to do so. There is a principle at stake, that is, that rich people and people who have access to wealth should not be able to fund their own pet political projects. It is a principle we should all stand over. The interaction between politics and money does not serve people well and has not served us well in the past. We cannot pick and choose when we are going to apply the principles or pick and choose regarding jurisdictions and laws.

Let me refer to another hypothetical scenario. If an Irish national party registered in both the Six Counties and the Republic received a very large donation from a nativist Irish American who supported its deluded desire to have an imaginary island it heard about in tales about making Ireland for the white Irish again, we would all have a problem with that. That is what the laws are designed to stop. In the United Kingdom, money was funnelled to the DUP for the Brexit referendum campaign to get around campaign expenditure limits. In the very last days of the campaign, the DUP suddenly had access to a large amount of cash to influence the referendum result.

This issue is much bigger than that of Sinn Féin or one political party but for all of us to have credibility regarding the wider issue, Sinn Féin needs to be willing to return the donation. It is about the principle of protecting democracy and not allowing it to be subverted by the political whims of one rich individual. We should all be in favour of that.