Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to kind of cut to a particular issue in relation to this Bill, which is the question of donations made for political purposes. The Bill proposes to make no change in terms of definition. As the Minister knows, a campaign is under way by some NGOs for the definition of “political purposes” to be loosened to ensure that their huge sources of private funding – particularly foreign funding – are not captured by donation rules. This arose from the case in 2018 where the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, tried to compel Amnesty International to return a large donation from the United States, which was given to it to fund a campaign for the introduction of abortion. SIPO believed at the time that this was a political purpose within the relevant legislation. As a result of the outworking of that case, where SIPO effectively pulled in its horns, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, Amnesty and other groups believe that, as the law stands, a political purpose is one that solely involves campaigning in elections, but it does not involve or include their campaigns to Irish laws on everything from abortion to transgender related issues and so on. They seek to copper-fasten, if you like, that loophole by an amendment to the legislation that they are proposing.

However, in all of this, they seem to be confusing a political purpose with an electoral purpose. There is, in fact, a big difference between the two. “Political” is a word, as far as I know, that comes from Aristotle from the Greek work politiká, which means the affairs of the city. By an ordinary dictionary meaning, political means relating to the Government or public affairs of a country.

Therefore, how could campaigns to change Irish laws not be deemed as political? They are surely the very essence of the conduct of Government and public affairs. As I said, in the wake of the Amnesty case, it seems that NGO money is not deemed to be used for a political purpose, even if it is used to campaign to change our laws or the Constitution, provided it is outside of the electoral period. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties, which relies heavily on foreign funding at the moment, has been lobbying intensely, as I said, for this position to be loosened even further. There is a campaign to protect foreign donations being funded by foreign donations, which strikes me as very strange indeed.

Also strange was the fact that some backbench Members of the Minister's own party seemed to support that view, or did at least during the Dáil debate on the Bill. They seem not to grasp the implications of the present position, which is this: if you have an unaccountable lobby group with no mandate that can accept unlimited donations from abroad to fund campaigns to change our laws or Constitution, but if political parties and independent politicians with democratic mandates do not have the same rights, you could have a lobby group or a think tank established here tomorrow funded entirely with money from abroad, aiming to lobby for an Irish exit from the European Union, for example. They could literally accept unlimited money – hundreds of millions – if they wanted to, from the UK, the US, Russia or wherever, and spend that unlimited money over many years, lobbying Irish politicians, mounting publicity campaigns, newspaper advertisements – the works. All of that would be entirely legal under ICCL’s and Amnesty’s interpretation of the law as it stands, of which they seek to copper-fasten. At the same time, if a political party, let us say Fianna Fáil for argument’s sake, wanted to mount an identical campaign to keep us in the European Union. To fund their campaign, they would not be able to accept a penny of foreign donations and would have to rely on donations here in Ireland up to a maximum of €2,500 and so on. The Minister knows the rules.

There is the contrast between the law as it stands, where a tiny unrepresentative lobby group with no membership or public support that we can prove have free rein to mount campaigns to change the law while those with an elected mandated are being hamstrung. That is a situation the Minister needs to address. It is not a case of copper-fastening this loophole, as ICCL and others want. He needs to close that loophole and re-establish the fact that political purposes include campaigning outside of the electoral period. I am amazed that the Minister has not thought to close that loophole in this legislation. The definition of “political purposes” needs to be changed to prevent what is a distortion of democracy.

Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian Government have been criticised for many things, no doubt some things justly and some not, but they were right when they criticised George Soros and the Open Society Foundations. They criticised the phenomenon of massive foreign groups putting money into changing society, basically bypassing the democratic process. We now know how the Open Society Foundations has compromised the independence of the European Court of Human Rights, with many of its kind of alumni now sitting on the benches. We know that Open Society and other foundations are compromising the independence of UN special rapporteurs. We need to have a debate about what happens when money comes in in large amounts from abroad to bankroll campaigns that may not actually have a mandate at all.

I ask the Minister to consider closing the loophole that now appears to exist because of the development of law, in this case, to make sure that we do not have the massive interference of foreign funds in Irish elections, political referendums and other campaigns-----