asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the financial assistance, if any, being provided towards the cost of the European election.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - European Election.
5.
The cost of organising direct elections to the European Parliament will be borne by the appropriate authorities in the member states. I presume that what the Deputy has in mind is the availability of funds from EEC sources to candidates or political parties contesting the direct elections to the European Parliament.
There are no funds payable directly to candidates or political parties contesting the direct elections in the member states. In its budgets for 1977, 1978 and 1979, however, the European Parliament set aside appropriations for an information campaign on direct elections. A proportion of the sum set aside for this purpose has been allocated to the political groups in the European Parliament in each of the years mentioned above. It is understood that a sum of approximately £.83 million was made available in 1977 while sums of approximately £3.1 million and £3.8 million were made available in 1978 and 1979 respectively. The actual distribution of these funds to the political parties which make up the groups is, of course, a matter entirely for the groups themselves and my Department have no information on the matter.
Surely this is gobbledegook. I have heard those three figures, £3.8 million, £3.1 million and £.83 million. Are we to take it that we can add them together and say that this is the amount of money coming from Community funds towards the election?
I cannot see how the Deputy can say that there is any gobbledegook in what I said. I shall repeat it, and it seems to me to be very clear: "It is understood that a sum of approximately £.83 million was made available in 1977, while sums of approximately £3.1 million and £3.8 million were made available in 1978 and 1979 respectively."
That is not the gobbledegook. It is almost £8 million. How is it that figure can be allocated from EEC funds when, if we are not directly contributing as individuals towards that amount, we are in fact losing what we might be getting as part of it in some other direction and therefore it is costing us money here individually and collectively? As regards the gobbledegook—it is not the figures I am talking about; it is the Minister's assertion—surely the Minister cannot assert that how this money has been distributed is not a matter in which he and his Government have a say. In other words, candidates are being assisted out of this money and in a way which precludes other——
This is an argument. The Deputy is giving information. Is the Deputy seeking elucidation of the original reply?
I put down this question to the Minister for the Environment. I would normally expect him to be handling matters dealing with elections within this country. It has been passed on to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and that is not my choice. Can the Minister or anybody else honestly say that part of EEC moneys, to the tune of £8 million, is going to the aid of candidates of the larger political parties through their groupings in Europe and those who do not belong to such are entitled to nothing? Is this not total discrimination as regards the distribution?
The allocation of funds from the European Parliament is a matter entirely for the Parliament or the groupings of that Parliament and the Government have no responsibility for it whatever. Neither has the Minister for the Environment nor myself. Simply because as Minister for Foreign Affairs I was able to get this information more readily perhaps I was prepared to put on record for the Deputy's information here what I have already said. But it is not a matter of governmental responsibility, as I presume the Deputy knows or should know. It is no function of mine to indicate other than what the arrangements are. The Deputy should know that the present procedures in the Parliament are a matter entirely for the Parliament itself and for the groupings through which these moneys are allocated to the constituent parties in the groupings. It is very self-evident that neither the Government here nor elsewhere can have responsibility for the allocation of funds to parties, their own or other parties that may not be in government with them. The Deputy may be unhappy but it is no responsibility of the Government and there is no point in his trying to pin it on that basis.
Do you not belong to it?
Is the Minister seriously suggesting that the amount of the appropriation from each of the three political groupings to each of the three main political parties in Ireland is unknown to his Department? It is well known to me what we got from the Socialist group and well known to the Minister what they got from the Gaullist group.
And it can be well known to Deputy Blaney also. I am only responsible for my departmental and governmental functions. I shall not get engaged in the matter of the figures being made available to each party since I have no function in the matter.
(Interruptions).
Surely it is in the public interest that the Minister should state—quite apart from information on expenditures of the Parliament itself—and as far as I am concerned in the socialist group we have absolutely nothing to hide in this regard—that each of the political parties in Dáil Eireann have received by virtue of their membership of a particular party political grouping in the European Parliament certain moneys? This is known to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
I accept that this is a matter that may be in the public interest but I cannot accept that it is my responsibility to disclose matters of information that can be obtained elsewhere, as the Deputy must know. There is an information office of the European Parliament from which this information can be got. If it is a matter of public interest it can be obtained there.
May I ask the Minister whether the £7.7 million allocated out of EEC funds as a loan to our Government, is not any part of the responsibility of the Government, as the Minister now claims, and that in fact he cannot give the amounts that each of the registered political parties in this country got through their international alignments and that I can get them anywhere else? I cannot. Neither can I get the figures nor am I or anybody like me entitled to one penny while we fight EEC funds and party funds in this election. I say it is discrimination.
The Deputy should address that question to the Bureau of the European Parliament who may have problems about every independent candidate standing in every country who is not already a member. I want to assert firmly that there is no money on loan to the Government from the European Parliament. There is no grant available to the Government from that Parliament. At least this has given me the opportunity to clarify that much in the Deputy's mind.
Question No. 6.
With the permission of the Chair——
We have pursued this question with argument—one final supplementary.
With your permission, Sir, may I give notice that I wish to raise this question on the Adjournment in the hope that we might be given some indication of where the £7.7 million that seems to have disappeared went without anybody knowing where it came from and who gets the benefit out of it.
I shall communicate with the Deputy.