Amendment No. 39 has already been discussed with amendment No. 4.
SECTION 15.
Amendment No. 39 not moved.
Amendments Nos. 41 to 43, inclusive, are related to amendment No. 40 and all may be discussed together. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 40:
In page 18, subsection (2), to delete lines 42 to 44.
These amendments concern section 15 which deals with gifts to office holders. This is the classic dilemma for the committee and the reason why we should adjourn at 12.15 p.m. rather than at 1 p.m. We were assured that we would have the electoral reform Bill to consider in tandem with this. I find it difficult to address section 15 without knowing the contents of the electoral reform Bill. Presumably this was one of the main reasons why the Taoiseach gave us a guarantee on a number of occasions in the Dáil that we could discuss the Bills in tandem.
The Chairman gave a ruling at the last meeting which, if I interpret it correctly, does not permit us re-entering amendments when Committee Stage is concluded.
I assured the members I would write to the Ceann Comhairle to inquire as to the position with regard to amendments. I asked this morning and I was informed that a reply had been drafted but would have to be seen by the Ceann Comhairle before it could be sent to me. It was not available for this morning.
Is this covered by section 14? Is it confidential or may we know what is in it?
I would not think so. I will have no hesitation on its receipt in sending the Deputy a copy of the reply received from the Ceann Comhairle as that is my duty.
The Chairman has conducted himself with admirable propriety to date and I have no doubt he will continue to do so, and I welcome his assurance. The problem is that we are being asked to proceed on amendments that touch on a central issue of another Bill and make judgements which are difficult to make. As I understand the Chairman's ruling, it suggests that once we pass on from a particular section of the Bill on Committee Stage it will not be possible to enter de novo an amendment on Report Stage unless it has been adverted to on Committee Stage. That will create considerable problems for us.
This section deals with ceilings on gifts to office holders and I do not quibble with the value of £500 set by the Minister. Amendment No. 41 deals with the subsection relating to the exclusion of a gift given as a contribution to the election expenses of an office holder. That appears to be a fairly extraordinary exclusion. I am not in any position to say this with certainty, but I suspect that contributions to office holders' election expenses are of a more significant character than those to ordinary Members.
I find it difficult to prosecute this amendment since we do not know, for example, what ceiling will be set on such contributions in the electoral reform Bill. It is a source of scandal that so much money can be spent on a general election or a by election. It distorts democracy when one candidate or party can spend enormous amounts of money, in effect, to try to buy election to Dáil Éireann and other candidates are put at a considerable disadvantage. Yet it happens all of the time. I heard my colleague Deputy Eric Byrne say in the Dáil recently that one party spent £100,000 on the recent by election in Dublin South Central. That is a scandal; it is a distortion of democracy.
It is difficult to deal with this section when we do not know what reforms, if any, are advanced by the electoral reform Bill. I do not know if the Minister is in any more definite a position than on the last occasion but I am sure that this matter will be raised in the Dáil today. The Taoiseach gave a hard and fast undertaking on a number of occasions that this Bill would not be pressed through the House without our being able to consider the provisions of the electoral reform Bill in tandem. We have not been able to do that and we have not been able to get any indication other than that it will be published soon.
On the last occasion the committee met it was against the backdrop of a story by a reputable journalist which sought to give us the terms of the Bill and inform us that it had been cleared by a Cabinet subcommittee. The Minister told us this was not the case, that the Cabinet had not cleared the Bill but she was not able to say anything further. I do not know if she has any more details today.
This section deals with the acceptance of gifts by office holders. If an office holder is given, for example, a piece of Waterford Glass worth more than £500 it becomes the property of the State. I have had a look at the exemption referred to in the light of the Deputy's concerns and we may be able to make some progress on it on Report Stage.
It means that if an office holder is given a gift of £600 it does not automatically become the property of the State. It does not refer to disclosure because the disclosure requirements are in the Second Schedule and in sections 5 and 7. An office holder will be obliged to disclose any gift received which is worth in excess of £500 and there is no exemption in the Second Schedule for gifts which are in the nature of election contributions. The only distinction drawn in section 15 relates, for example, to a case where Deputy Rabbitte might receive a gift of £600 for his election expenses. He would declare it but he could keep it and spend it on his election campaign.
In this section we are saying that a Ministerial colleague who received a gift of £600, for example, towards election expenses would not surrender it and it automatically become the property of the State. The section refers to surrender of gifts and not to a declaration of interests. That is safeguarded in section 5 and in the Second Schedule.
I strongly agree with Deputy Rabbitte's point about buying elections. That is why the electoral Bill has been prepared. I spoke to the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Michael Smith, this morning and I am told that we can expect publication of the Bill very shortly. I regret that it is unavailable.
The effect of this section is to provide that any gift which exceeds £500 in value and which is given to an office holder by virtue of that office — that includes certain gifts given to a spouse or child of an office holder by virtue of the office holder's office — becomes the property of the State. Appropriate administrative arrangements and mechanisms are put in place to give effect to that principle. Certain gifts are not to be regarded as gifts given by virtue of office. They are the exemptions in the section.
Will the Minister explain that point? Subsection (2) states:
For the purposes of subsection (1), a gift given to—
(a) an office holder,
(b) the spouse of an office holder, or
(c) a child of an office holder or of his or her spouse,
is given to the office holder by virtue of his or her office unless the gift is given—
...(ii) by virtue of an office .... or position held or the status enjoyed by the recipient.
What does that mean?
If a present worth over £600 was given, for example, to a Minister in his capacity as chairperson of his golf club or by virtue of another office he or she held it would not become the property of the State. However, if a gift is given to somebody in his or her ministerial capacity and it exceeds the value threshold it becomes the property of the State. That is the effect of the subsection.
This is a little unusual. There is a language problem here which could be due to the drafting. On the one hand "office holder" could refer to a Cabinet Minister and on the other hand it could refer to the president of a golf club. They are both referred to as holding an office——
——or position held or status enjoyed.
I see that. However, it is extraordinarily trivial at one end of the spectrum and very serious at the other. I can see many Cabinet Ministers becoming presidents of their golf clubs if this is allowed to stand. It appears to be an obvious ruse. We have been joined by somebody who knows about being the president of a golf club.
I do not know how you got the message.
I am sure he would agree with me that——
I already know about golf.
Perhaps I should have employed a less male term than president of a gold club.
An ICA club.
Why include this provision? It is an escape hatch that ought not be there. It merely creates another channel for the contribution of gifts especially, at critical times like elections. You need only wear another cap not to be amenable to the provision. I do not understand why this subsection is here.
The impression is given in the Bill that it is acceptable for individual Members of the Oireachtas to receive gifts. What is the position if three members of the same family each give the politician £500? Has the Minister reservations about that?
I do not believe that the problem is solved by providing that the person has to be a member of a certain organisation and is given gifts by that organisation. This section gives the impression that voters are fools and that their votes can be bought. I have heard it said that the purpose of this Bill is to prevent people being conned into voting a different way because of the influence of money. All political parties — and individual candidates — spend money on their election campaigns. The money is not given to voters to vote for a candidate. Does the Minister think the voters are fools?
The money received in personal subscriptions are in the first place personal subscriptions. It does not necessarily follow that because I am a Fianna Fáil TD the people who give me subscriptions are Fianna Fáil supporters. These subscriptions are personal subscriptions to the person involved. It is up to the individual Deputy or Senator, if elected, to adhere to their principles and to understand the relevance of personal subscriptions. People give the impression through the media or whatever that the donor can approach this individual and seek a favour in return for the subscription. I do not believe that subscriptions are to buy votes — the voters are not fools; £50 to give me a number one vote? What are the Minister and her officials who are responsible for this Bill trying to do? They are trying to give the impression to the public that such subscriptions are a danger. The money given in subscriptions is used to look after private canvassers, to pay their car expenses and for their meals when they are obliged to travel around the constituencies to put up posters or to call to people. It also pays for advertising in local newspapers. I assume that candidates seeking election would do that. The party would also advertise. I want to make it crystal clear that money from subscriptions is not given to people for their votes. This Bill and this section give the opposite impression and I want to knock that on the head for once and for all. It is time the Minister's officials who prepared this Bill rethought it. They might believe that to be the situation but it is the wrong impression to give to the public. I do not believe that the voters are fools or that their votes can be bought. That cannot happen and has never happened. The Irish are educated and intelligent enough to know how they want to vote.
I understood that this section referred to gifts to office holders only and that it had nothing to do with contributions made for political reasons at elections either by church gate collections or by contributions from the trade union movement. At present, by law, the only contributions that must be published are contributions made by trade unions to political activists or otherwise. Sometimes there is even criticism that only certain people benefit from trade union contributions. The section, as I understand it, is about gifts to office holders and places a ceiling on their value, over which they become the property of the State.
Deputy Rabbitte is worried that subsection (2) (ii) provides an escape clause. An office holder could also be a voluntary or honorary office holder in a sports club or other organisation and may receive a gift in that capacity. The subsection was designed to ensure that a person was not discriminated against in their private capacity while participating as a voluntary office holder in a football or golf club. A gift received on that basis would not become the property of the State. The section attempts to address this problem.
Deputy Rabbitte is anxious about the other Bill which places a ceiling on contributions received at election times. It will impose an obligation on everybody to ensure that the State funds elections and that private contributions cannot be used to, as Deputy Rabbitte said, spend £100,000 on a by-election. The other Bill will regulate this area but this section serves a specific purpose.
Deputy Rabbitte was worried that section 15 (2) would constitute an escape clause if somebody received a gift by virtue of an office other than that covered by the Bill.
The section provides that a gift is presumed to be given by virtue of office unless it can be shown otherwise. Section 15 (4) provides that the secretary to the Government will be the arbiter in these cases. I have no problem with having the commission act as an arbiter but when we are dealing with routine gifts such as pieces of Waterford glass and so on the Secretary to the Government is chosen to arbitrate on these issues as a matter of practical convenience.
As Deputy Ferris pointed out, this section deals primarily with gifts to office holders and the circumstances in which the gift belongs to the office holder or to the State. It gives statutory effect to a long standing convention that gifts of valuable property given to Ministers are deemed to be the property of the State. This is a test by which one can judge whether a gift is considered sufficiently valuable.
I am sure the Secretary to the Government would not like to be lumbered with pieces of Waterford glass worth £100 which have to be placed in the National Museum or elsewhere. By and large gifts given to office holders tend to be tokens, for example, a nice pen, a piece of Waterford glass or a bunch of flowers. This provision deals with a situation where a foreign Government may give a very valuable gift and that becomes the property of the State. The Bill regularises and gives statutory effect to this situation.
There are a number of points here but there are two main points. The first is the question as to where this interacts with the electoral reform Bill and election expenses. The second is the extraordinarily clumsy wording of section 15 (2) (ii).
I am not trying to bring about a situation where the clerk of the Dáil will have to be a former employee of Waterford glass so that he can make an assessment of the calibre of glassware presented to office holders during the period of a Government.
No seconds.
It is important that it is of the very highest quality.
And sourced in this country.
Tipperary Crystal.
If it is not of the highest quality, it certainly should not be insured by Irish taxpayers' money, if it is not sourced here. I do not see the Minister's argument for persisting with section 15 (2) (ii) which states that an office holder is exempted: "by virtue of an office (other than by reference to which a person is an office holder) or position held or the status enjoyed by the recipient". It could not possibly be more clumsy than that. The Minister now tells us that the office envisaged here could be that of president of a golf club or chairman of a residents' association. A Minister need only be chairman of his residents' association and when a friendly developer who wants to build a road through the estate makes a gift to him, he can use section 15 (2) (ii) and the gift will not even be considered as a gift to an office holder.
The Minister cannot wait to reply, which is untypical, so I will immediately give way.
Under section 15 (4) (b) the Secretary to the Government shall, in accordance with the general directions of the Government determine for the purposes of subsection (1) and (2), the question of whether a gift is given to an office holder by virtue of his or her office. The Secretary to the Government is normally a civil servant of the highest independence and standing and a person who serves successive Governments in that capacity. We can rely on the good sense of the Secretary to the Government not to endorse situations where somebody creates an artificial post to keep Waterford glass or other valuable gifts over the £500 threshold.
If there is concern about this issue I am happy to introduce an amendment to section 15 (4) (b) on Report Stage to allow the Secretary to refer a case to the commission and they will determine whether a gift is given by virtue of a person being an office holder or because of some other position. However, the Secretary will act as an independent arbiter to ensure that this is not used as a back door to evade the provisions of the section. If this is enacted the presumption in law will be that a gift is given to an office holder by virtue of their office.
Deputy Rabbitte served as my national group secretary with distinction in the transport union. If he rose to ministerial status and if his grateful former trade union colleagues——
It seems a much more distant prospect this morning than it did last night.
——present him with a valuable gift worth £600, I am sure he would feel a little miffed if it were to become the property of the State when it was clearly given to him by virtue of his holding an entirely different position. This section is designed to allow that exemption.
By and large people do not go around giving gifts of this nature to office holders. It is a rare enough occurrence but we have enough safeguards in this section.
I am obliged to the Minister for her kind recollections about her days in the trade union movement. The only contribution my trade union colleagues gave to me when I was elected to this House were my cards.
Has the Deputy given them to the State?
There is no particular difficulty about me registering them. I have been extraordinarily restrained in registering my views on it over the years.
There is an argument for excising this provision. Apart from any other consideration, requiring the Secretary to the Government to adjudicate on such an issue is not the business of the Secretary to the Government. I do not see any reason for including it.
The Minister said that the purpose of subsection (3) is not to exempt but rather to permit the office holder concerned to claim to spend whatever the value of the gift or devote it to his or her electoral expenses. She says, therefore, that if it exceeds the threshold of £500, the Minister may keep it. I think Deputy Ferris shares my view that we are more concerned about a sum of £6,000 or £60,000.
It is difficult to pass judgment on the provisions of the electoral reform Bill without knowing what they are. There is no ceiling here. We only know it is in excess of £500 and that as long as the donor claims that the moneys were contributed for the purposes of election expenses, there is no ceiling on it.
If we are promised legislation to deal with this matter, it seems extraordinary that the same week we should enact legislation where there is no ceiling. The two Bills may be inconsistent. The Minister said she discussed this matter this morning with the Minister for the Environment who is responsible for the other Bill. Do we have any definite deadline for the Bill? Should we not adjourn our discussion of this section until we have the details of the electoral reform Bill? We are discussing a fundamental reform where, for the first time in the history of this State, a ceiling will be placed on spending in election campaigns. I commend the Minister. It would be a contribution towards equality for any citizen offering himself or herself for election if they do not have to confront the over - whelming financial power which is unfairly exerted at present.
This Bill seeks to exempt contributions for election expenses. There is no time requirement on the exemption. For example, if someone made a contribution last week because they expected an election, does this legislation cover that? The donor can say that he expected a general election, therefore he made a contribution based on that expectation. Will a donor be able to say at any time over the four year period from when a Government is elected until it falls — on average it is actually less — that the contribution was intended as election expenses although there was no election in the offing? I do not know why the exemption is made. As I understand it, some parties would be happy if there were no exemption, so that the contributions went to the parties, as distinct from the individuals. However, that is not my concern. I cannot understand how we can be expected to dispose of this matter when we do not know what is in the other Bill.
We are preoccupied with the issue of gifts. I do not want to cast a reflection on anyone, but they are generally of a token nature and would not be worth £500. Moneys received by persons running for election to the Oireachtas are small and finance officers from the local organisations, rather than candidates, handle those contributions. Everybody knows that a member elected for a party — and I am talking about all parties — ends up on the wrong side. We receive correspondence from our friendly bank manager, which says he wishes to refer to previous correspondence — not too nice — and a P.S. at the bottom which says he would like to have a conversation in due course. One must buy raffle tickets — 12 tickets for £10 — at Christmas time.
Many Members are trying to pay off the liabilities not only of Dáil elections, but also local elections to the municipal authorities, town commissions, urban councils and others. I do not see why we are worried about this. I have never seen large contributions. The section may need to be tidied up. I do not believe the Government Secretary, if he is the appointed person, will have any difficulty if he is called in, and I doubt if he will be.
I will try to be fair to Deputy Rabbitte, in particular, who made the point about the need to look at the other promised legislation, which is almost ready. The Taoiseach has said they could be dealt with jointly. I do not know what parliamentary procedure can be initiated to deal jointly with two separate Bills, except that they merge on this section to protect the possibility of this committee being able to bring forward amendments Report Stage. By mentioning an amendment to the Minister, which she might consider on Report Stage, it would give us the opportunity to consider it. Section 15 (3) states that "Subsections (1) and (2) shall not apply to a gift given as a contribution to the election expenses of an office holder." Perhaps the Minister would consider inserting an addendum which would state "subject to the ceiling laid down in other legislation". I suggest this, although it may not be necessary because the other legislation will have a ceiling. However, it gives us the opportunity to table an amendment on Report Stage which would continue to state "subject to the ceiling laid down" in the electoral reform Bill.
That is a helpful suggestion. The discussion has been so wideranging that any amendment I introduce on Report Stage to match this Bill with the electoral Bill will not be out of order. I will consider this in the light of the published electoral Bill. My understanding from my discussion with the Minister for the Environment is that the electoral Bill will be published before Report Stage of this Bill. I assure the Deputies that there is no intention of cutting across open debate in relation to any interface between the two.
As regards section 15(3) and election expenses, Deputy Connolly is confusing two different things when he talks about tokens. Gifts to office holders may be regarded by many people as token, but on the question of contributions towards election expenses, the ceiling does not apply. It could therefore be a substantial donation.
Does the Minister consider a contribution at any time during the lifetime of a Government could be deemed to be a contribution for election expenses? It certainly seems to be the case from the section as it is written. There could be a very stable Government with a large majority that would last for a long time and it is not immediately apparent why a contribution at any time during that five years would be deemed to be a contribution to election expenses when there are no such expenses.
This section does not deal with disclosure of gifts. Any gift valued at more than the £500 ceiling, for election expenses or for any other purpose, is disclosable under the Second Schedule and section 5 of the Bill. There is no problem in relation to disclosure. All we are talking about here is surrender. However, gifts valued in excess of £500 are deemed to be the property of the State. In section 2, the definition section of the Bill, we define election expenses as "expense incurred for the purposes of promoting, directly and during an election" etc. It is obvious that during an election is what is envisaged but I have undertaken to look at this when we have a final text of the Electoral Bill. My intention that there will be full exclosure of gifts, whether they are for election purposes or otherwise, is clear. The only moot point here is in relation to surrender.
Is the amendment being pressed?
Election expenses are defined on page 7 as expenses incurred for the purpose of promoting, directly and during an election. Would that definition apply in the interpretation of this subsection?
Yes.
Can I go back to section 2 (2) and the confusion over the terms "office holder" and "holder of an office"? Will the Minister tidy that up or is it to be left like that? For example, is the honorary treasurer of Fianna Fáil the holder of an office? Could he also be an office holder?
That is a hypothetical question.
Let me disown any personal implication as I have the highest regard for the holder of these positions at the moment but I am advancing it as a serious point. It seems one can be an office holder in the sense the Bill means, generally relating to being a Cabinet Minister and certain other posts, but one could also be a holder of an office in one's party and one could plead the latter as the particular office referred to in order have exemption under this section.
The safeguard against any abuse of this section is that the Secretary to the Government would be the arbiter of whether a gift was made by virtue of somebody's position as a Minister of the Government or given because of a function as party treasurer. I have already said I will look again at whether we can bring in the Commission in such cases to show a demonstrable independence. I believe the Secretary of the Government is independent. The Secretary is there to ensure that a piece of Waterford Glass worth £501, for example, can be disposed of simply by the Secretary making a judgment so as not to clutter up the commission with trivia. I can look at the case where there is a question as to which office the gift is given to in order to see if we can bring in the commission. That will deal with the real concerns of Deputy Rabbitte. He is putting forward these views in order to ensure that we have a gifts regime which is transparent and open and that is also my intention. I am sure that on reflection we can come up with wordings that will meet his concerns and that the process of deciding to which office the gift is given will stand the highest scrutiny.
Is amendment No. 40 being pressed?
Yes. I had an additional point——
You have another amendment, No. 44, to come.
Does the Bill cover the situation where a Government Minister goes abroad with his wife representing the country and the Government or Prime Minister of the country wishes to give a gift to the wife worth £5,000?
Yes. It is deemed to be the property of the State if the gift is given to the accompanying spouse.
Is that the case even though the gift has been given by the other State as a personal gift to a person who is not an Oireachtas Member?
This is provided for in the Bill. Gifts exceeding the threshold, which are given to the partner of a Minister by virtue of the Minister's office, become the property of the State. It is not a civilian plucked out of the air who is given the gift by a foreign Government,
I want to raise with the Minister her interpretation of 15(2)(i) which is a further exemption where the gift "is given to the office holder by virtue of his or her office unless the gift is given by a friend or relative of the recipient and for personal reasons only". Is that phrase to be taken in its totality? I am not exactly sure how one could establish a person being a friend or a relative of the recipient and giving it for personal reasons only.
There have been some famous examples of what constitutes a friend, a business friend, a social friend and so on. There have been some extraordinary difficulties in getting some prominent people in politics to admit to having any friends at all. There was a fairly celebrated case brought on by the aggravation of politics generally about contributions to the spouse of a Member of the House by a brother-in-law, presumably for personal reasons. It seems to be a rather murky area and I would like to hear the Minister's views.
I regret to interrupt but it is now 1 o'clock and it is proposed to adjourn.
The Select Committee adjourned at 1 p.m.