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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 22 Jun 2001

Vol. 538 No. 6

Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2000 [ Seanad ] : Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

An ongoing review of the electoral code is essential to ensure its accuracy, consistency and workability. In view of the changing lifestyle of the electorate and the disappointing downward trend in turnout at polls, we must continuously examine the operational procedures of registration and polling to ensure that any obstacles or inflexible practices are remedied. At the same time, however, we must make certain that the integrity and security of registration and voting are not diminished in any way.

The Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2000, is the outcome of this ongoing review. It seeks to improve the registration process, revise the conditions for registration of political parties and to clarify, amend and improve other aspects of the electoral process. It includes an important new provision for electors to decide that their names and addresses in the register of electors should not be used for a purpose other than electoral or other statutory use. It contains a number of other amendments including provision for the display of a large print copy of a ballot paper in the polling station to assist electors generally but particularly visually impaired electors.

The Bill forms an important part of the Government's programme of reforming the regulatory framework for public life. It provides for a revised regime for the acceptance and disclosure of political donations and the financing of political parties. It also provides for miscellaneous amendments to the Electoral Act, 1997, to improve the operation of that Act for political parties, public representatives, the Public Offices Commission and others. It will also revise expenditure limits for candidates at Dáil elections to what I believe are more practical and sensible levels than were set out originally in the Electoral Act, 1997.

The Bill does more than revisit and up-date the existing electoral code. It is also forward looking legislation which could have a profound effect on the way elections are held in this country. In December of last year, a Dutch-UK company, Nedap/Powervote, was appointed to deliver an electronic solution for the current manual voting and vote counting arrangements and the Bill will provide the statutory basis for the use of voting machines and electronic vote counting at elections. It will also provide for the inclusion of photographs, first used at European elections in 1999, and political party emblems on ballot papers at most elections and will include provision for earlier opening of polling stations.

I will now deal in some detail with the main elements of the Bill which contains 58 sections set out in five parts.

Sections 1 and 2 are standard provisions dealing with citations, construction, commencement and interpretation. Section 1(9) provides for the Minister to make orders for the commencement of the Act. This subsection is required because some of the Bill's provisions, especially in relation to the register of electors, require a lead in time to become effective. It is the intention, nonetheless, that all of the Bill's provisions will be commenced as early as possible.

Part 2 of the Bill amends the Electoral Act, 1992, which is the Principal Act providing for the registration of electors and political parties, the conduct of elections to Dáil Éireann and the arrangements and rules for the counting of votes. Sections 3 to 34 make a series of amendments to the code ranging from relatively minor technical adjustments to a number of new provisions.

Sections 3, 4, 32 and 34 introduce the first major change in relation to the register of electors, namely, providing electors with the opportunity to decide whether they wish their names and addresses in the register to be used for a purpose other than electoral or other statutory use. Specifically, the "edited register" will exclude the names and addresses of electors who indicate that they do not want this information used for commercial purposes. Registration authorities will have three years to contact all electors on the register before the publication of an "edited register" is mandatory. If a registration authority is in a position to publish an "edited register" before the expiration of the three years, it may do so. Commercial use of registration information excluded from the "edited register" will be an offence under section 32.

One might ask in relation to this provision, why produce an edited register at all? The important consideration here is that the register of electors is a public document and, as such, it is not covered by data protection legislation. It can be bought by anybody and modern technology allows personal information in the register to be more easily processed than previously. Anecdotal evidence available from complaints suggests that the sale of the register for commercial purposes may act to discourage some individuals from registering. In addition, there is an emphasis in data protection legislation that persons should be able to withhold their consent to the use of personal data for a purpose other than that for which it is collected.

In providing for this matter, the choice had to be made whether to make it illegal to use the data in the register of electors other than for electoral or other statutory purpose or else seek to make it available subject to the consent of the elector. The Government has opted for the latter course, in which electors are able to register their wish to restrict the availability of their personal details at the point of data collection. If it is found that most people do not wish to be included in the "edited register" or there is no demand for such a register, then its discontinuance will be considered in future legislation.

I stress that there will be no change in the provision of the register to elected politicians and candidates. As I said, the register is not subject to the Data Protection Act, 1988, because it is a public document. However, public representatives are required to register with the Data Protection Commissioner if they add personal data to the register relating to racial origin, political opinion or religious or other beliefs, physical or mental health, sexual life or criminal convictions. The possession of the register of electors does not, in itself, make registration necessary.

Section 4 also provides an enabling power to create a national register of electors which may be required in the future for further developing electronic, Internet or telephone voting and which will facilitate the on-line updating of the different individual registers of electors countrywide. There is also a provision that the preparation and maintenance of the register of electors can be assigned, by order of the Minister, to a body other than a registration authority. This would enable other organisations besides registration authorities to be involved in the process. There have been complaints during the years about the accuracy of the register and perhaps other bodies could bring new ideas on how to improve matters. Such a ministerial order would have to be approved in draft by both Houses of the Oireachtas.

Section 6 includes two important and worthwhile changes. The first provides that a person who is on a register of electors and moves residence from one constituency to another or from one local electoral area to another, can apply for entry to the supplement at their new address provided they authorise the registration authority to delete their name from the register of electors for the area in which they are registered.

This is a measure which I am sure all Members will welcome as particular annoyance is expressed at elections and referenda by people who are on the register but have moved residence to another constituency or local electoral area. Under cur rent law, such persons cannot vote in their new constituency and must travel to their old constituency, with the associated cost and inconvenience, to vote for candidates who do not represent their new area.

Section 6 also provides that persons who reach 18 years of age between the date the register of electors is published and polling day will be eligible for entry on the supplement to the register. The proposed amendment is intended to clarify the position that a person, who becomes 18 years old on or before polling day, including the period after the cut-off date for applying to get on the supplement, can apply on or before the cut-off date for entry on the supplement for the poll in question.

Section 10 replaces and extends section 16 of the Electoral Act, 1992, to provide that electors lists can be compiled in place of the draft register, register and supplement to the register. The use of lists would provide an opportunity to have a rolling register where it will be possible to add and delete names throughout the year. While the present supplement facility does provide for additions, electors lists could be a more efficient way to keep the register up to date. After the Bill is enacted, my Department will consult one or more registration authorities concerning their use. It is envisaged that electoral lists would be introduced on a limited basis initially and their application could then be reviewed in the light of the experience gained.

Section 11 provides for a comprehensive revision of section 25 of the Electoral Act, 1992, concerning the preparation and maintenance of the register of political parties. Most of the amendments have been sought by the registrar to assist him in carrying out his functions and to provide for the registration of political party emblems. A review of the conditions for registration is also necessary as registration now covers more than just putting the name of a political party on ballot papers. Registered political parties are entitled to State funding for the administration of the parties if they obtain not less than 2% of first preference votes at a general election, a matter to which I will return. The parties also have certain disclosure and other obligations under the Electoral Act, 1997, and certain rights under the referendum Acts with approved body status. The main changes proposed to section 25 of the Electoral Act, 1992, in section 11 is the introduction of criteria which new parties will be required to meet in order to be registered. The criteria include a membership of not less than 300 or 100 in the case of registration in part of the State or local or Údarás na Gaeltachta elections, each of whom must have reached the age of 18 years, and at least 50 per cent of recorded members must be included in the register of electors. In addition, the organisation and direction of the party must be governed by a constitution, memorandum of association or other such document or other written rules, which have been adopted by the party. As an alternative to the recorded members requirement, a party must have at the time of application for registration at least one member who is a Member of Dáil Éireann or, a representative in the European Parliament or, in the case of local elections, three members who are members of a local authority or, in the case of an Údarás election, one member.

Other changes include: the registration of an abbreviation or acronym or party emblem; the facility to have details on the register amended; the name of the party cannot exceed six words; and a requirement that an application for registration and amendment of entry on the register will not be effective if the final decision is not given before the movement of the writ or the making of a polling day order.

The register in force when the section commences will be deemed to be the register without any action required by political parties entered on the register. If required, an application will have to be made to the registrar for registration for Údarás elections.

Sections 12 and 13 devolve power in relation to polling schemes to local authorities. A polling scheme divides a county or county borough into polling districts and appoints a polling place for each polling district for the purpose of holding elections. Under current arrangements, the Minister confirms or otherwise a polling scheme prepared by a local authority and submitted to him. However, this is a function which should be determined locally, where the detailed local knowledge resides, rather than centrally in the Department.

Section 15 is a small but important clarification that a person who reaches 21 years of age on or before polling day is eligible for nomination for election. The present legislation is silent on the precise date when a person must reach the age of 21 years. It is desirable to clarify this matter as a doubt, in one instance, ended up in the High Court.

Sections 16, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 23 together provide for the inclusion of photographs and political party emblems on ballot papers and related matters. Photographic ballot papers were used for the first time at the June 1999 European Parliament elections in order to give voters additional information to assist them in making their choice. It was also anticipated that the measure would be of assistance to those with low levels of literacy. Research into the European election experience appeared to confirm anecdotal evidence at the time of the elections and since that people are generally well disposed towards the use of photographs. The attitude to their future use in the survey results was overwhelmingly positive and there was also a fairly strong belief that photographs were of assistance to electors in casting their vote. Likewise, the feedback from people with literacy problems was positive. The research did, however, caution that the use of photographs could introduce a bias in favour of candidate centred criteria and it has been decided, therefore, to include party emblems as a counterbalance to candidate photographs.

Section 17 removes an anomaly in relation to the recoupment of deposits and election expenses. At present, an unsuccessful candidate at a Dáil by-election can qualify for the recoupment of his or her election expenses up to £5,000 based on a quarter of what would have been the quota in the constituency had the by-election been a general election. At the same by-election, however, a candidate may not qualify for a refund of their deposit of £300 as this is based on obtaining a quarter of the quota at a by-election. Section 17 will apply the same conditions to both the return of a deposit and the recoupment of expenses to a candidate at a Dáil by-election. Similar amendments are repeated in sections 29, 30 and 31 dealing with the count rules, which include provisions for the transfer of votes if it would enable a candidate to qualify for a refund of his or her deposit.

Sections 24 and 26 provide that persons, who are unable to read or write to the extent of not being able to vote, can have a companion vote for them: at present this facility is confined to electors with physical or sight disabilities. However, its extension to persons with literacy problems is justified and will complement the use of photographs and party emblems on ballot papers, which will also be of assistance to such electors. The proposed change in section 25 is in response to a considerable number of representations received by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, and me that polling day staff who are registered voters in a constituency other than the one in which they are employed, are unable to vote. Section 25 will allow such persons to vote by post provided they are included in the supplement to the postal voter's list. Similar amendments for European, presidential and local elections and referendums are contained in Part 5 of the Bill.

Section 28 deals with the secrecy of the ballot on islands and also in other areas where there is a small turnout. This section provides that ballot boxes with 50 or fewer ballot papers should be opened in view of the public, including tally persons, but at a distance to ensure the secrecy of the ballot. Its purpose is to ensure that an agent or other person present at a count cannot identify the preferences of voters whose ballot papers are in a ballot box containing a small number of papers. An agent could surmise how a person voted from local knowledge or from the marked copy of the register of electors. Such a scenario is potentially in conflict with the constitutional requirement that "voting shall be by secret ballot".

Section 33 reduces to 50 metres the distance from a polling station that canvassing can occur and posters can be displayed. There have been complaints that the requirement in the 1992 Act, which prohibits persons from canvassing or inter fering with electors within 100 metres of a polling station, has made it difficult for voters to identify polling stations. The amendment will allow for posters nearer the polling station but still at a reasonable distance from the curtilage of the polling station building so that electors will not be harassed going into the polling station.

I want to move on to one of the more innovative aspects of the Bill, the provision for the introduction of electronic voting and counting. Sections 35 to 48 provide a statutory framework for the use of electronic voting and vote counting at Dáil elections. The number of sections may appear small but the relevant sections of the Electoral Act, 1992, will apply subject to the necessary modification. As announced in last December's budget, the Government provided £500,000 in 2001 for the first phase of a programme to introduce electronic voting and counting for elections in Ireland. Following extensive research by my Department into available technologies and an international tender competition, a Dutch-UK company, Nedap-Powervote, has been chosen to deliver an electronic system. Phase 1 of the project is under way with development and testing of voting machines, election management software and PR-STV count software. When testing establishes that the system operates satisfactorily, the Government will consider using the equipment in a number of constituencies at an election or referendum, provided, of course, the legislative provisions are enacted. I stress that the Government has only agreed in principle to the introduction of the system, subject to satisfactory testing. The legislation is enabling, if such testing establishes that the system is suitable for Irish electoral conditions.

The Nedap-Powervote solution will provide a large screen voting machine, which is successfully used in the Netherlands and in the German cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf. Large screen machines are also used extensively in the United States but they were not involved in the now infamous Florida count. Election preparation will be run from an industry-standard PC system and the completion of the count, using PR-STV, will also be carried out on a standard PC and programming unit. The emphasis with the chosen system is on security and simplicity. The system will be simple to use for voters and returning officers and their staff. Vital functions will be available for authorised staff only and a new version of the election management software will be provided for every election. Electors will register in the normal way at the polling station, record their preferences by pressing a designated space beside the candidate's details on the ballot paper displayed on the voting machine and vote by pressing the vote cast button. There is a facility for an elector to correct or change a preference recorded before the vote cast button is pressed. Votes cast are always securely stored in case of a machine or power failure.

During the Bill's passage through the Seanad, a number of concerns were raised in relation to this project and, disappointingly, the Labour Party opposed the measure. While I can understand a certain apprehension among Members, I assure the House that the system will be tested exhaustively by Department officials, returning officers and the Local Government Computer Services Board. It is also proposed to subject the system to independent testing by two international test institutes and by a company here in Ireland. Only when the Government is fully assured that the system operates satisfactorily will a pilot project in a constituency be undertaken.

The Department expects to get delivery of six voting machines, together with the necessary software, in July. Due to the holiday period, intensive testing will not commence until September. In the autumn, the Minister will invite representatives of political parties to join the steering group overseeing the testing of the system. When the voting machines are delivered, Department officials will provide, if requested, demonstrations of the machine to party spokespersons, individual Members or groups of Members of the Oireachtas.

I stress that the Government wishes to have all-party consensus, if possible, on the system. All testing reports and specifications for the voting machine and software will be sent to the Oireachtas Library for the information of Members, and Department officials will facilitate Members of the Oireachtas in providing information on the system. In addition, publicity and information programmes for the public will be carried out before the system is used. The introduction of electronic voting and counting is a large and challenging project for the electorate, electoral administrators and, not least, everyone in this House. Nonetheless, I am confident that at the end of this project we will have a system that will make it easier for the public to vote, provide election results within a few hours of close of poll, improve the efficiency of electoral administration and support a positive image of the country in use of information technology.

While electronic voting and counting will help to modernise our democracy, we need to be radical also in terms of our determination to clean up politics. The Government has set its face firmly in favour of the restoration and maintenance of public confidence in the standards by which Ireland is governed. As part of that reform, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government announced, earlier this month, a new regime for the disclosure and acceptance of political donations. The amendments contained in section 49 of the Bill provide for: the introduction of maximum limits on political donations of £5,000 to political parties and campaign groups and £2,000 to individual public representatives and candidates at elections – the £2,000 limit will not apply to a constituency office provided to a public representative by any person, however, the disclosure of the donation, if over £500 a year, will continue to apply; a prohibition on accept ance of donations from an individual, other than an Irish citizen, who resides outside the island of Ireland or a company which does not have an office on the island of Ireland from which the carrying on of one or more of its principal activities is directed.

A requirement that all public representatives, unsuccessful candidates at elections and third parties who receive a donation for political purposes greater than £100 in any particular year must open a political donation account through which all donation transactions in that year after the opening of the account must take place.

Annual and post-election donation statements must be accompanied by a statement from the financial institution, specifying the transactions that have taken place in the account, together with a certificate stating that all donations were lodged to the account and were used for political purposes. The bank statements will be sent to the Public Offices Commission or local authority but will not be available for public inspection unless ordered by a court to do so or where disclosure is required in connection with an investigation held by the commission or local authority.

The new requirements will apply to TDs, Senators, MEPs, councillors and candidates at presidential, Dáil, Seanad, European and local elections, and the requirement to furnish an annual donation statement is extended to councillors.

To counterbalance the fall off in funds available to political parties as a result of the capping of donations, the amendments in paragraph (c) of section 50 provide for an increase in the annual public funding made available to political parties from the current level of just over £1 million to £3 million. In addition, each registered political party which obtains not less than 2% of the first preference votes at the previous general election will receive an annual payment of £100,000. Public financing is necessary to ensure that parties have enough money to operate and in order to limit inappropriate private influences. Private financing must be subject to a ceiling and must be totally transparent. Contributing to the funds of political parties is a legitimate practice. Political parties perform an essential function in democratic societies and it is in society's interest that they should have the resources to carry out that function effectively. In some countries, contributions to political parties are positively encouraged by mechanisms such as tax incentives. While there is no ideal model for financing political parties, the system the Government is proposing based on a reasonable balance between public and private funding will operate satisfactorily and will contribute to improving standards and to restoring public confidence and trust in public life.

As well as the major new additions to the Electoral Act, 1997, in Part 4, it has been necessary to bring forward a range of amendments to the existing provisions to deal with a number of difficulties that have arisen in applying its conditions. This is not surprising given the complex reporting and administrative procedures that the legislation entails. The experience gained by the Public Offices Commission since 1997 has, understandably, given rise to operational difficulties and section 50 revisits the Electoral Act, 1997, as amended in 1998, to provide for a number of amendments, most of which have been requested by the commission. The changes are listed in the explanatory memorandum and deal mainly with working difficulties encountered in regard to the application of the legislation but I would like to mention two items in particular.

Paragraph (j) of section 50 amends that part of the Electoral Act, 1997, dealing with election expenses for Dáil and European Parliament elections which provides for the definition of expenses on the basis that everything is included unless it is listed in the paragraph dealing with excluded items. This has given rise to difficulties in interpretation for political parties, elected members, candidates and the Public Offices Commission of what is and what is not an election expense for the purposes of the Act. The aim of this amendment is to define, in a more constructive way, what election expenses actually encompass. For convenience and clarity, these matters are set out in a new Schedule to the Bill together with specific exclusions, to avoid doubt. The list of matters included in the Schedule is typical of the type of expenditure that arises at an election. They include expenditure on advertising, publicity, posters, leaflets, office rental, transport, market research and payments to campaign workers.

The exclusions, as before, will include free postage under the Electoral Acts; payments, services or facilities provided out of public funds; the transmission of party political broadcasts and the payment of a deposit, etc. Two clarifications are made to the list of exclusions: paragraph 2(f) makes clear that reasonable living expenses include accommodation. The amendment at 2(g) clarifies that minor expenditure is expenditure on any item of less than £100 by an individual out of his or her own resources provided the costs are not recouped to the person. In addition, the exclusions include any expenses in respect of property, services or facilities in so far as those expenses fall to be met out of public funds. These changes are being made to the expenditure regime at presidential and local elections.

The second matter to which I refer is contained in paragraph (I) of the same section and it is a change, which it is fair to say, has attracted an amount of political controversy. Many of the difficulties I referred to earlier in relation to the operation of the Electoral Act, 1997, may not have arisen if the original expenditure limits were set at reasonable levels. Candidates and members of both Houses should be able to go about their daily business, whether acting as representatives of the people or campaigning at an election, without the need to carry a calculator to ensure that every penny spent is accounted for. The Minister has, therefore, taken the opportunity in this Bill to revise the expenditure limits at Dáil elections to what are realistic levels. Section 32 of the Electoral Act, 1997, sets the original expenditure limits for candidates at a Dáil election at £14,000, £17,000 and £20,000 for a three, four and five seat constituency respectively. These amounts were increased in line with increases in the CPI on 13 October 1999 to £14,453, £17,550 and £20,648. However, the Minister has always believed, and I agree with him, that the original limits were inadequate and it is now proposed to increase them to what are more workable levels of £20,000, £25,000 and £30,000.

The Minister's position on this issue has been consistent.

Minister, your time has concluded but if the House is agreeable, the Minister may conclude. Is that agreed? Agreed.

When the Electoral Act, 1997, was being discussed on Committee Stage, the Minister proposed amendments to increase the limits to £20,000, £22,500 and £25,000 which, when updated for increases in the CPI to 2002, are comparable to those now being recommended. The two lower amounts proposed are less than what the updated amounts would be in June 2002, if his original proposed limits were accepted in 1997.

It is important that expenditure limits be set at a level which will permit the running of an effective campaign without the need to engage an army of accountants and financial advisers to keep within unduly restrictive amounts. I do not want Members of the Dáil after the next general election to be under investigation by the Commission for moderate expenditure over the limits, which I am sure will happen were the present amounts to remain. The revised limits are based on the principle that an effective election campaign is an essential element in the democratic process. Clearly, the determination of appropriate limits is a matter of judgment. The judgment of the Government is that the proposed limits in the Bill are reasonable, balanced and workable and provide an appropriate framework for the regulation of election expenditure.

Section 51 is largely concerned with consequential amendments to the European Parliament Elections Act, 1997, following the amendments in Part 2 of the Bill. The one substantive extra amendment provides for the transfer of responsibility from the Clerk of the Dáil to a chief returning officer for a number of matters at European elections, including forwarding the election results to the European Parliament and receiving, storing and destroying documentation. Essentially, it is proposed to restore the pre-1997 position as the Clerk of the Dáil does not have adequate storage facilities in Leinster House or the resources to meet the various demands that arise from his responsibilities in this area.

Sections 52 to 55 provide for consequential amendments to the presidential, local election and referendum codes following the amendments in Part 2. Sections 56 and 57 make amendments to the Seanad Electoral (University Members) Act, 1937, and the Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) Act, 1947, to provide for photographs on ballot papers, an edited university register of electors, an advance to the returning officers for their expenses before the election orders are made and for producing the Seanad register of electors in electronic format. Section 58 applies the provisions of the earlier amendments, including those concerning limits and the opening of special accounts to local authority members and candidates at local elections.

The Bill can be characterised in two ways. It is innovative and forward looking in terms of electronic voting and counting, the provision of photographs and party emblems on ballot papers and provision for earlier opening of polling stations. It is also radical in terms of the provision for a reinvigorated donation, expenditure and political funding regime that is both transparent and fair. However, it also revisits the existing electoral code to streamline registration arrangements, to clarify provisions in relation to age and eligibility to vote, to expand and update the conditions for registration of political parties and to improve the working of the Electoral Act, 1997, for the Public Offices Commission and elected representatives. Like all politicians and commentators, I am concerned at the trend towards declining voter turnout in recent years. We must continually examine the statutory and administrative arrangements in place for elections and remove difficulties, where they arise. We must also address concerns about standards in public life. This Bill addresses such issues. It will help to modernise our democracy and deal with the more sophisticated demands which our economy and technological developments impose on the political decision making process. I commend it to the House.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Belton. This Bill was introduced on the last day of the session before last Christmas. At the time it was introduced, it was promoted as being primarily concerned with the introduction of electronic voting and the inclusion of photographs and party emblems but it was very quickly realised that these were being used almost as a cover for its main purpose which was to significantly increase election spending limits. The original Act brought forward by the rainbow Government in 1997 set limits at £14,000, £17,000 and £20,000 per candidate in three, four and five seat constituencies respectively. The Bill proposes to increase these limits before they have been tested in a general election to £20,000, £25,000 and £30,000 which is an increase of 50%. None of these details was included in the two page press release from the Minister. It is now clear that the primary purpose of the Bill was to legitimise £1 million in extra spending by Fianna Fáil.

After the fanfare of its publication and the minutiae of new voting methods were announced the Bill went into a period of hibernation until the Taoiseach, responding to the debate ongoing at the time, said he would introduce limits – and he did call them limits – to political donations. The limits from a single source were to be £20,000 to parties and £5,000 to individual candidate. This so-called concession was greeted with such howls of outrage from both the public and media that the debate and the Bill went into hibernation again. I am aware that the Government has engaged in desultory negotiations with the main Opposition parties recently, in the hope of reaching a consensus. These negotiations were always doomed to fail because the Opposition parties and the Government parties have different perspectives. On one side there were those who realised that the system of political funding had to change, the other side did not realise the message they were getting from the public.

Everybody who has ever stood for election to this House has depended on fund-raising and on the receipt of donations to mount their campaigns, to buy their posters and literature, to cover their advertising expenses, to run their party organisations and to fund policy development units. Over the years we found ourselves on an ever quickening treadmill of fund-raising. Over time the demands for fund raising grew with the self-imposed need to indulge in more sophisticated methods of advertising and communicating with the public, not to mention polling the electorate between elections and the use of focus groups. With that growth in demand for funds the traditional types of fund-raising, such as church gate and door-to-door collections, changed into something more sophisticated and eventually much more insidious. The small contribution of the supporter was replaced almost overnight with the golf classic, the benefit nights and the £1,000 per table lunches. That, of course, meant turning to the corporate sector. Parties and candidates were now looking for funds well beyond the means of the average supporter or well-wisher.

That step has brought us into a new, but grey, area of interdependency with the corporate sector. This has had a cataclysmic effect on the body politic and has cast a cloud over us all. Worse than that, it has left the majority of the public disillusioned and cynical, not just about politicians but about the entire political process. That is not just disappointing and upsetting for all of us, it is dangerous. The debate which has followed the Treaty of Nice referendum and the low voter turnout at the poll should be instructive. It is too easy to dismiss it as a vote which is anti-enlargement, disinterest in elections, that we are too well off to bother voting or any one of the myriad of issues which were raised during the debate. It was about all of those things, but it was also about something more. The debate is the culmination of a process which has been ongoing for some time and for which the referendum was merely the catalyst which crystallised public thinking. It is the withdrawal of consent to be governed. This may seem to be overly dramatic but I genuinely believe this is what we are witnessing, at least in part. The public have lost trust in politicians and that loss is now extending to the entire political process. It is reinforced by a lack of political leadership and by an increasing lack of democratic accountability. Scandals, allegations, tax evasion, the unhealthy relationship between business and politics and the misuse of positions of influence have all eroded public trust. We may not like this, we may deny it, rail against it and consider it unfair. It is unfair to most Members and former Members. It is also unfair to the corporate sector, the very words "corporate sector" are now pejorative. Yet the majority of businesses that contribute to parties and candidates do so because they realise that democracy has to be funded and they feel a duty to support the political process.

It is true that individual businesses and organisations lobby us, but then we are lobbied by everybody. In my experience the poorest and most disadvantaged individual has precisely the same access as any business person. In many cases they probably have better access because the natural inclination of all politicians is to pay greater attention to, and put effort into, the problems of those who we feel are less able to look after or speak for themselves.

I believe that the majority of politicians in this House are honest, hard-working, highly motivated and have a genuine desire to serve and do the very best for their constituents and the country. Due to mounting evidence we cannot deny that some politicians somehow lost sight of their reason for being here and, wittingly or unwittingly, they were sucked into a web of intrigue and betrayal. Sadly, this reflects on us all, and it is now demonstrably damaging our democracy. It is nothing short of heartbreaking for all of us to read and witness the utter contempt in which the public now hold politicians and to see their distrust, cynicism and ongoing process of disengagement from politics. What is even more heartbreaking is the sense of betrayal felt by the public. Not very long ago this public felt they had a very strong democracy. That feeling was particularly strong among the older members of the population who built this country and endured many sacrifices, who were proud of it but are now appalled by what they see happening. Our young people have grown up in this atmosphere and know nothing else, they are completely detached from politics.

When Deputy Noonan announced that Fine Gael would no longer accept corporate donations it was not just another political ploy to prove his party to be more worthy that others. He banned those donations because he could hear the public's message. The bells of that wake-up call, which have sounded so loudly in recent days, have been ringing for some time. The public have lost trust and faith in a system which depends on corporate funding and which appears to have an unhealthy relationship with the corporate sector. It is disingenuous of the Taoiseach to say it makes no difference if the funding is from an individual or a company. The public believe there is a difference. Faith and trust comes from and are based on what people believe.

This Bill has been amended many times. In the latest version, which became available only on Wednesday night, the limits of donations from any source are set at £5,000 to a party and £2,000 to an individual candidate. I welcome this reduction. It is an enormous decrease from the £20,000 originally envisaged by the Taoiseach. Yet it misses the point entirely. I would have thought the disclosure thresholds of £4,000 and £1,000 might have been more appropriate, but that is not the point either. It is far too late to merely tinker with the rules. It is time to change the entire game. It is inexplicable that after all the scandals, revelations and all that is still going on at the tribunals in Dublin Castle, that the Government – and Fianna Fáil in particular – still have not grasped that the game is up for all of us. If we are to have any hope of restoring public confidence in the political system, we have no choice but to turn our backs on corporate donations and on the association of politics with the public sector. That association is deeply embedded in the public mind. It is no longer a matter of reducing limits on the amounts of corporate donations, it is the very concept that is now repugnant. It taints not because it must corrupt and compromise – it does not always do that – but because it has the potential to do so and because there is a perception that it does.

Another bombshell on election expenditure is contained in the Bill. It is an amazing attempt at sleight of hand by the Government to publish a Bill – ostensibly about electronic voting, emblems and photographs – and tuck this significant and fundamental change into the miscellaneous section as if it were nothing more than a technical adjustment. What we have in this section is an attempt to raise the spending limits by a full 50% before those limits have even been tested in an election. Much has been made of the fact that maybe they are unfair and in the by-elections that took place and even at the referendum they presented some problem, but the truth is they have not been tested in a general election. Because the spending limit is related to the number of candidates, a general election would inevitably give far greater flexibility in spending than a by-election where only a single candidate can be elected.

Offering us an excuse that some candidates in previous by-elections overspent by two and sixpence is not a justifiable excuse for changing these limits. There was no groundswell of opinion that demanded we should increase them. There was no public demand or appetite for this. Opposition parties did not ask for it; neither did the Public Offices Commission. A great deal of debate and thought went into the setting of the previous limits which I thought were fair and adequate. The only logical explanation for the increase is to favour Fianna Fáil, which is the largest party with the most candidates and has the ability to raise more and spend more. Possibly the worse aspect of this provision is that it thumbs its nose at the public who are sick to the back teeth of all the scandals and discussion on party fund raising and party spending. By upping the ante on spending, it means that all parties will have to try to compete and match Fianna Fáil spending. The Minister is putting all parties and candidates back on the same treadmill of fund raising and increasing forever our dependency on fund raising and for what? That is the hook from which we should be striving to release ourselves. Apart from all the problems of fund raising it has presented for us and the public, it is a complete distraction from what is our business as politicians and what we should be about. We all have more than enough to do in our constituencies and as legislators without having to go around selling tickets to fund raise.

The content and the rush to push through this Bill leads me to the conclusion that Fianna Fáil is clearing the decks for an early election and that plans for the big spend are already under way. I wish to refer to a glossy book I received when I went home last night, which at a first glance I saw was issued by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and I assumed it was an information leaflet from that Department. On opening it, I found a letter from the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, telling us all about what the Government is doing and has done for us. I thought it was fair enough for the introduction to be a sort of party political broadcast. The text starts with, "The Government are committed . . ." I will ignore the grammatical error, maybe it is a reflection of the Government's dual personality, but it goes on to state that when the Government came to power, what it is doing to help people, how it has increased the rate of pensions, what it promised and how it is delivering on them. I read on and thought surely the rest of the text is not all about what the Government did.

Will the Deputy quote the title of the document?

I will not read chunks from it.

The Deputy may quote from it, but she should give the title of the document from which she is quoting for the record.

The title is "Changing for a Changing Ireland". It states in various sections that the Government has decided to do such and such – at least the Government is singular in those sections. It states, "In line with our Government's commitment to a better service, the Government are committed to supporting people with disabilities." It also states that the Government has decided to give record increases to old age pensioners and that the Government is setting up websites. The Government appears to be doing everything. This is election spending. This is a way of circumventing limits. I know the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs issues a information leaflet every year and that maybe all Governments and Ministers have tried to promote themselves through promotion of the services, but this is going over the top. I have no idea what it cost to send this booklet to every house in the country, but taxpayers should be aware that their money is being spent to promote the Government in the run up to an election. This is not the only Department doing that. I saw ads where other Ministers associate themselves with the work of their Departments. The big spend is definitely on. I suppose more such booklets will come down the line that will involve the spending of taxpayers' money.

Why is this Bill being rushed through if it is not to provide for the big spend for an election? Why did the Bills Office work right through the night on two consecutive nights? Why in the absence of the relevant Minister is this Bill suddenly so urgent that the current amended version was published only on Wednesday night and that we have to sit today to take Second Stage? I have heard that amendments will have to be in by early next week in order that Committee Stage can be completed by next Friday.

This is an important and complex Bill. It has been fundamentally changed by amendments tabled by the Minister at the last moment, which means that most of us have scarcely time to read it or even give it a cursory reading, much less absorb its content and intent or to be in a position to give any thought to the type of amendments we should table on Committee Stage.

There are good provisions in the Bill and I applaud them, provisions which I am sure all of us would welcome, such as the provision for electronic voting and improvements in the registration of electors. There is a great need to modernise the process and primarily to make voting easier and more accessible and not only to ensure that anyone who wants to cast his or her vote can do so with ease but to encourage others who may use the inconvenience of the voting process as an excuse for not voting, to exercise their franchise.

I am sure every public representative here has ideas that he or she would like to submit about the rules for registering, the location of polling stations, the hours and days of polling and so on and how they can be improved, but there is precious little time to give it any of the consideration it requires and deserves.

The electronic voting system has great potential to extend the franchise and make it more accessible. I notice the provisions in the Bill appear to provide for limited improvement except in how voting is carried out and the counting of votes. I have never noticed any problem with the counting of votes manually here and we have often done it much better than countries who do it electronically. I also regret that the brief for the system has already been given. It makes a bit of a mockery of Committee Stage in that we cannot really make amendments to this provision because if the system has been ordered it is a case of it being too late. I also welcome the requirement to open political accounts and so on.

The Bill attempts to lay out in tortuous detail the concise circumstances of what constitutes election spending and what does not, what we can do and what we cannot do in the course of the campaign, which facilities we can avail of and which we cannot. Taken together they constitute an enormous burden of complex and arcane responsibilities and obligations. I am sure the purpose of the Bill is to bring clarity to the current situation, but it does not do that. I am sure it will be a great help to the Public Offices Commission in determining later who has transgressed its provisions and who has not, but in the heat of a campaign it will be of precious little use to a candidate. I would not be happy to leave my house to campaign without a lawyer, an accountant and a copy of the Bill in my hand. Every candidate will live in terror of unwittingly transgressing some rule or regulation, and there are not only rules and regulations in that if candidates transgress them, they will commit a serious offence. We must ensure there is clarity on this, as we will not be able to do so again if the Bill is pushed through.

I welcome, although I do not have time to speak on it, the increased funding for political parties which is extremely important. I have always thought democracy was badly served by giving all the resources to the party in Government and none to the Opposition. I thought it diminished the efficiency of our democracy by reducing the opportunity to scrutinise and diminished our role as legislators. The use of public money will result maybe in more thoughtful, productive and fruitful use of money and move away from the slick gimmicks for advertising that perhaps all of us have slipped into in recent years. We will have to be far more accountable in the spending of such money in the future as it will be taxpayers' money. For the public to accept this, however, the corollary must be that we end our dependence on corporate political donations.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Like my colleague, I regret the short time we were given to consider its provisions.

The first issue I wish to deal with is the register of electors. This has caused untold problems during the years. Students from rural areas who move to the major cities to attend third level institutions tend to be registered to vote in those cities. I do not know how that happens but it appears that party workers call to a house occupied by students, take their names and addresses and register them to vote. When the election takes place during the summer – the usual time for elections to be held – the students are back in their home areas where, in many cases, they have been removed from the register. They are, therefore, denied the opportunity to vote. Can the Minister explain this?

I accept that young people are not terribly interested in voting but the register should be voter friendly. Instead it is the opposite. Members who came through the local authority system will be aware that when the register is being drawn up it is generally the political parties which get voters onto it. In some cases, however, people are removed from the register and the political party is blamed. That approach is outdated. It is most important that the register is compiled through a system that favours the voter.

I do not understand the reason for including the party emblem on the ballot paper. There is no need for that, whatever about including the candidate's photograph and mentioning the official registered name of the political party. Including a party emblem on the ballot paper makes no sense. There must be a reason for this suggestion; one can be sure that it must suit somebody or a political party. The Minister has not explained the reason for it.

The Bill provides for changes regarding postering and canvassing outside polling stations. I welcome the fact that in recent years people could go to a polling station without being harassed outside. Putting up posters adjacent to polling stations was also stopped. In this legislation the Minister appears to be changing that welcome development. The last thing people want when going to cast their vote is to be harassed by others pulling and dragging at them in an effort to seek their vote. That practice should be banned. I will be interested to hear the Minister's reason for making this change.

A new system of voting is also proposed. There were enormous problems in the recent American presidential election with the voting system. We use the proportional representation system. How will electronic voting operate with regard to the count? It is not a simple matter of first past the post. Our PR system is extremely complicated and I am anxious to hear how a count can be completed using an electronic system. There is no need for such a system. The system we have works well.

The main problem we have is getting people to vote. There seems to be an attitude that voting and elections are just for the benefit of politicians, but it is the people's system. The people own our democratic system and that fact cannot be emphasised enough. Learning about the political system should be part of the school curriculum. People should appreciate democracy. There has been much bad publicity in recent years for the democratic system but we must be positive about it. Much good work has been done. The purpose of most politicians at local and national level is to serve the people in an honest and honourable fashion. That aspect of politics should always be emphasised and respected.

It is easy to make a quick joke about politicians and democracy. However, it should be remembered that people in other parts of the world are prepared, even as we speak, to fight and die for their right to have an assembly such as this and have their voices heard. Any country that does not preserve its democracy and ensures it is allowed to flourish is guilty of letting it down.

This Bill is one of the crudest political measures ever brought to the House. It is the most politically biased legislation I have seen in my 12 years as a Member. It is a cute political stroke that is typical of the Government with its tabloid Taoiseach. It is legislation that will confer advantage on the main party in the Government, Fianna Fáil.

Second Stage is being held, most unusually, on a Friday when the ink is barely dry on the amended version of the Bill that emerged from the Seanad. It is proposed to rush the Bill into committee next week and have it out of Leinster House and up to Áras an Uachtaráin for signature before the Dáil goes into recess. That will put in place a new spending regime that is crisp and ready for Fianna Fáil in good time for the next election.

I proposed to move a Second Stage amendment to the Bill but it was ruled out of order. I accept that ruling. However, the Labour Party will oppose Second Stage because the Bill fails to end the corporate funding of political parties, despite compelling evidence of the damage being done to the political system by the financial links between business and a number of political parties. The Bill fails to reduce the disclosure limits for donations to political parties or candidates and provides for an increase of up to 50% in the amount candidates may spend at the next general election. That will permit the Fianna Fáil Party, the authors of the Bill, to spend close to an additional £1 million at the next election.

The Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2000, contains a number of welcome reforms, and some reforms which are not so welcome, to the electoral system, but its two basic objectives are to protect Fianna Fáil's corporate financial base and to provide for a huge increase in the amount Fianna Fáil will be able to spend at the next general election as it attempts to buy its way back to power. It is true that it has been forced to make a partial retreat on the issue of corporate funding by imposing, for the first time, limits on the levels of corporate donations which may be contributed to a party or candidate, a retreat which is, in turn, a partial victory for the Labour Party which has led the campaign to end the corrosive financial link between business and politics. Despite the demands of the Labour Party, the Fine Gael Party, the Green Party, several Independent Deputies and a significant number of Fianna Fáil Members, including Deputy Fleming, Fianna Fáil has refused to take the ultimate step of banning corporate donations for reasons which we will look at in more detail.

The Labour Party's position on this issue is quite clear. We are determined to end the financial link between business and politics. It is in the interests of both business and politics to do so. Everything which has emerged at the tribunals of inquiry, including the details this week of the antics of former Deputy Ray Burke and his corporate financial backers, has reinforced our view that this objective is not only desirable but essential. This is our position on which we do not intend to compromise. We will continue to pursue the matter either until we convince the Government to act or until such time as the Labour Party is back in government and in a position to introduce the legislation.

The handling of this Bill by the Government and the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, has been disingenuous and dishonest. I regret that the Minister is not in the House to debate the Bill and wish him well in his recovery, but I am highly critical of the way in which he and the Government have introduced it.

When the Bill first appeared on the list of promised Government legislation last year, I was very curious about it. Suddenly it appeared at No. 1 on the list of priorities of the Department of the Environment and Local Government, which has much legislation which it needs to enact in the areas of housing, road safety, waste and all the other issues which have been neglected by the Government in that area. Suddenly the Bill, which became the biggest priority in the Department, was an unpromised Electoral (Amendment) Bill. I raised the matter on the Order of Business on a number of occasions and the Taoiseach told me innocently, in his usual way, that it was a Bill to provide for photographs on ballot papers and other such matters. I asked for a briefing on it and eventually was provided with a two page briefing note which suggested some harmless, but generally welcome, changes to our electoral law. I was not told the real purpose of the Bill which was to increase Fianna Fáil's electoral spending.

The Bill was eventually published on 15 December 2000, the last day of the Dáil session before Christmas. It was not so much published as slipped out. The Minister published a press release, listing a few of the non-controversial proposals in the Bill. Buried away at the end of the press release was the line that the Bill "will provide for revised expenditure limits for candidates at Dáil elections". No information was given as to the new limits.

When I examined the Bill, the reason the Minister was being so coy was clear. Without any warning or demand from anyone, he had suddenly introduced vastly increased spending limits which would provide in some cases for an increase of up to 50% in the amount a candidate is permitted to spend at an election. While he has made some concessions on the issue of corporate funding, he has made it quite clear that he has no intention of budging on the new spending limits. Under the terms of the Bill, Fianna Fáil will be entitled to spend almost £3 million at the next election. This would represent an increase of £944,000 on the limit provided for under the terms of the 1997 Act.

In the 1997 general election Fianna Fáil ran a total of 113 candidates: 47 in five seat constituencies, 39 in four seat constituencies and 27 in three seat constituencies. If they were to run the same number of candidates in the next election, broken down in the same way, under the terms of the Minister's amendments, Fianna Fáil would be entitled to a maximum spend of £2,925,000. This will clearly give Fianna Fáil a huge advantage over other parties and candidates in terms of buying power in key areas such as advertising.

The Minister has suggested that everyone would be able to avail of the 50% increase in spending limits. This is a totally disingenuous argument. It is like saying that the K Club is open to everyone; it is, if one has the money. Only Fianna Fáil, with its rich corporate backers, will be in a position to avail of the new spending limits.

The increased limits will simply encourage the waste of money as candidates try desperately to compete with their corporate backed rivals. In the last general election there were 21 candidates in the Dublin South Central constituency, for example, which was at that stage a four seat constituency. At the next general election it will be a five seat constituency and there may well be even more candidates. Even if the number of candidates remains at 21, the maximum permitted spend in the constituency would be an incredible £630,000. I doubt that the people of Dublin South Central want up to £630,000 spent in their constituency trying to persuade them how to vote.

The irony is that these spending limits are being hugely increased without ever having been applied at a general election. The Electoral Act, introduced by the Labour Party in the rainbow coalition Government, for the first time set limits on the amount which candidates and parties could spend at a general election. Although passed in 1997, it was not possible to have it operational for the general election in that year as the Public Offices Commission and the necessary regulations were not in place. The limits set by the Act were £14,000 per candidate in a three seat constituency, £17,000 in a four seat constituency and £20,000 in a five seat constituency. The legislation, introduced by my colleague, Deputy Howlin, then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, provided for the automatic increase of these figures in line with inflation and, therefore, the current figures are somewhat higher.

From the early 1980s, election spending had increased rapidly, as Fine Gael tried to match Fianna Fail's traditionally higher spending and the Labour Party tried not to be left behind. The need for political fundraising increased in parallel with spending, leading the two largest parties to depend on large corporate donors. This set the scene for the relationship between wealthy donors and political parties currently being revealed at the tribunals. Anyone who has ever been involved in an election campaign will acknowledge that, prior to the introduction of limits, much of the expenditure was wasted with parties trying to match each other in terms of the numbers of posters or leaflets produced. Deputy Howlin's legislation aimed to achieve three goals: to create a level playing pitch between well resourced parties and less well off parties; to create greater public transparency about what was spent and donated during elections; and to reduce dependence on donors by limiting the expenditure of political parties.

As I stated, the 1997 legislation was never applied in a general election, but it has been applied in five by-elections and is being applied in the current Tipperary South by-election. It is widely recognised that by-election spending of the larger parties has been significantly curtailed by the legislation. Fianna Fáil has acknowledged that it would routinely spend up to £40,000 on a by-election campaign. The success of my colleagues, Deputies O'Sullivan, Seán Ryan and Upton in their by-elections and the Independent candidate, Deputy Healy, in the Tipperary South by-election last summer can be seen, to some extent, as a vindication of the legislation. The fact that Fianna Fáil has not won a by-election since the new limits were introduced may explain its determination to dismantle this key element of the 1997 legislation. There have been minor problems in regard to interpretation and record keeping, which have affected all parties, but in general the legislation has worked well and has succeeded in creating a far more level playing pitch.

If the massively increased spending limits proposed in the Bill are agreed to it will give political parties three choices. Some parties will have to spend less than the legal limits, allowing other parties to gain more electoral advantage, parties can try to spend right up to the legal limit by putting themselves massively in debt or they can try to spend up to the legal limit by undertaking a massive fundraising drive which will make them dependent on corporate donors and wealthy individuals. None of these developments would be good for the health of our political system. No convincing case has been made for such an increase in spending limits. There is a compelling case for leaving them to increase in line with inflation, as provided for in the 1997 legislation introduced by the Labour Party in Government.

Fianna Fáil's determination to massively increase the spending limits cannot be detached from its determination to hold on to corporate funding. Media interest in corporate funding of politics started around the time of the beef tribunal but some of us have watched this area with mounting concern over many years. It has been well known that some companies were paying political contributions to parties and individual campaigns over a long period of time and until recently these were generally regarded, as the late Mr. Justice Hamilton famously put it in the report of the beef tribunal, as "normal political donations". The practice should be ended because, at the very least the corporate funding of the political process has distorted political competition in this country.

Until the 1997 Act there were no limits on the amount a party could spend in an election campaign. While the level of election spending and votes received did not always positively correlate in each individual case, it is clear that the parties with the greatest financial resources got the highest number of seats in elections in this State. It was always difficult, sometimes impossible, for a candidate or party with limited resources to compete with the expensive advertising and professional campaigning of a larger party, with its corporate funded war-chest. A candidate or a party might have a very worthy message or set of policies at election time, but how were they expected to communicate them effectively to the electorate in the three weeks of an election campaign? Money enabled candidates and parties to talk at election time and those whose messages were heard best, were those who could afford the costs of communicating. The corporate funding of political parties significantly influenced the outcome of elections and the formation of Governments.

If the first distortion of politics caused by corporate funding related to elections, the second relates to policy and ideology. It is no accident that the parties which have received, and still receive, the overwhelming bulk of corporate funding are those which are generally perceived to be pro-business. In a way the corporate funding of the more conservative parties in this State has been itself the justification for trade union funding, limited though it is, of the Labour Party. As a former trade union official, I recall debates at union conferences about the establishment and existence of a political fund. The argument was that if the employers were going to promote their collective economic interests by funding political parties, their workers needed to have a political arm, to which the trade unions contributed.

It is not surprising that this country is unique in Europe in that we have never had a Labour-led Government, and that traditionally the Labour Party and its allies on the left, up to now, have been the third force in Irish politics, behind Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This aspect of the country's political history is not unrelated to the fact that the Labour Party had always to contest elections against uneven odds and that it never had the financial resources for organisation or for electioneering as had the two larger parties. The result has been that in this country the Labour Party has never been able to break out of third place and that the ideological consensus has been that whatever was good for business was good for the country.

The third distortion of politics to which corporate funding has contributed is the decline in public confidence and in our democracy. This is perhaps the most worrying. What began as perhaps a tangible declaration of class allegiance or perhaps a sense of duty to fund politics generally, has, it appears in some cases, degenerated into a straight corrupt trading of votes for money. To restore confidence in politics we need to end the corporate funding of political parties.

No party has been able to match Fianna Fáil in terms of the amounts of money it can hoover up from the corporate sector. It is not just funding for elections – although this is crucial. It is also that corporate funding provides the financial lubrication for the party's entire political machine. It is not surprising that the Taoiseach has resisted all demands, including those from a number of his Ministers and backbenchers, to end corporate funding. He has been the master of the system of milking the corporate sector. The fine political headquarters he has at St. Luke's in Drumcondra, a headquarters that is the envy of probably every other Deputy, was constructed with financial bricks provided by the corporate sector.

The amendment introduced by the Minister in the Seanad which will limit corporate donations to £5,000 to a political party is an attempt to appear to be doing something to address public concern about corporate funding without threatening Fianna Fáil's lucrative efforts in this area. It is too little too late. The decision to retain corporate funding as well as the failure to reduce disclosure limits will mean the issue of political funding will remain furtive and secretive.

I do not believe the decision to limit corporate donations to £5,000 will significantly reduce corporate funding received by Fianna Fáil, although I am interested that the Minister of State has justified the increase in State funding from £1 million to £3 million on the basis that there will be a corresponding decrease in corporate funding. Is he saying that by putting a limit of £5,000 on corporate funding the loss, mainly to Fianna Fáil since it is the main beneficiary of corporate funding, will be £2 million per annum? If it is then the extent of the corporate war-chest assembled by Fianna Fáil is surely greater than any of us ever considered possible.

There are too many loopholes in this legislation. Each separate corporate identity will be able to donate £5,000 to Fianna Fáil each year. Many commercial concerns now have several separate corporate identities. I do not know how many separate companies there are controlled by, for example, Mr. Tony O'Reilly or Mr. Michael Smurfit, but I suggest there are many. Take a totally fictitious group of companies and call it the Ray Burke Group. There could be Ray Burke (Planning) Limited, Ray Burke (Rezoning) Limited, Ray Burke (Radio Licences) Limited, Ray Burke (White Envelopes) Limited, Ray Burke (Isle of Man) Limited, Ray Burke (Jersey) Limited and so on. Each of these could have a separ ate corporate identity with separate sets of directors, yet could all be controlled by the one man. Under this Bill each of these companies could make separate donations of £5,000 to Fianna Fáil and each could make separate donations of £4,000 each to Fianna Fáil and the public would not know about it.

The Taoiseach has consistently argued that a ban on corporate donations would be unconstitutional. At the same time he has consistently refused to publish the legal advice he claims to have received to this effect. I do not believe that legal advice exists and I challenge the Government to produce it. There is no legal advice available to the Government which states that putting a complete ban on the corporate funding of politics would be unconstitutional. The legal advice available to the Labour Party is that there is no constitutional impediment to banning corporate donations. Commercial entities do not have the same legal or constitutional rights or status as citizens. Citizens have a constitutional entitlement to vote, but commercial entities do not have such an entitlement.

The simplest way to deal with the issue is the manner proposed by the Labour Party in the Private Members' Bill that passed Second Stage last May. However, it was subsequently blocked by the Government. It prevented the Bill being debated and considered by the Select Committee on the Environment and Local Government. It would limit the right to make contributions to political parties to individual citizens who are registered electors. The days of corporate donations are limited. The Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2000, is a last gasp effort by the Fianna Fáil Party to save for itself a discredited practice which has done enormous damage to the political and democratic system. The Labour Party will oppose it at every stage of its progress through the House.

I wish to refer to some of the other proposals in the Bill to which I intend to return on Committee Stage. The worrying background to my comments is the declining turnout at elections. There is an assumption that the declining turnout reflects a declining interest in politics or cynicism about politics. There is an element of truth in that, but we may be unwittingly contributing to the problem by continually talking down politics and democracy. This will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will drive good people out of, and discourage good people from entering, politics. It is more likely to lead to a situation where, in some cases, those elected will be convicted criminals rather than decent citizens with a less exciting curriculum vitae.There are a number of reasons for the decline in electoral turnouts, one of which is the inaccuracy of the electoral register. Some people are double registered while others who have passed away continue to be registered. People are registered at old addresses and others who are ill cannot vote. It is now incredibly difficult for working people to vote. Polling stations open at 9 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. The stations open after people have gone to work and there is only a small window of opportunity for them to vote during the normal working day. It is impossible for somebody whose work takes them away from their normal home base on polling day to vote.

A constant theme of the broadcast media in particular, from the earliest news bulletin and throughout polling day, is that the turnout is low. Examples are given of polling stations where only two people had voted by 12 noon. By 6 p.m. or 7 p.m, any normal person listening to the constant parade of low turnouts could only form the conclusion that he or she would be an oddity if he or she voted. The issue of whether comment on the turnout on polling day is contributing to some extent to the decline in the overall turnout needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately, the Bill does not address the problem of low electoral turnout. It makes no significant provision for reform of the way in which the electoral register is compiled. Ireland has an archaic system for compiling its electoral register. Local authority officials go around housing estates on bicycles, trying to establish if a person is living at a particular address. Everybody in the State who is over the age of 18 has an official address registered or recorded in some Department, such as the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs or the Department of Education and Science. Therefore, it must be possible to establish an accurate register of electors.

The proposal for electronic voting in the Bill is a sham. I would support electronic voting if it was intended to use a modern system. If it is possible for a person to buy a lottery ticket at 7.50 p.m. for a national draw at 8.05 p.m, why is it not possible to have a system where somebody who is living in Dublin but working in Cork can go into a polling station there and submit a vote? This is the type of electronic voting that is needed. An electronic voting system that replicates the idea of the traditional polling station in a school where one pushes buttons on a machine is not a modern system. It is a pretence. The Minister claims it will make voting easier and encourage more people to vote, but my view is that it will do the opposite. It will have a particularly discouraging effect on older people who may not be as comfortable with the use of machinery and screens as they are with the traditional method of voting.

A system of electronic voting that widens the opportunities and locations for people to vote and which might ultimately lead to a situation where people can vote from home would be worthwhile. However, it appears the proposed system is based on a 1950s American style voting machine and still requires people to go to polling stations. It appears the process of voting will be more complicated and, ultimately, it will be open to error. The Minister said it is a different system from the one used in Florida. However, events over the past year are no encouragement for an old style system that involves mechanical voting on an electronic basis. If we are to move to electronic voting, the system should hold the electoral register electronically. It should ensure the opportunity for people to vote in shopping centres or even at home is widened. It should extend the opportunity for voting rather than limiting it and pretending a process of modernisation is taking place.

The House is not only making legislation, but making history today. In the future, the Bill will be deemed the most important legislation passed by the House since the previous general election. For the first time since the foundation of the State, legislation to ban large donations to political parties and candidates is being introduced. This ban will apply to corporate and private donations. Donations of sums above £5,000 from any source to a party or above £2,000 to a candidate will be illegal. The Government is performing admirably in view of the facts that have unfolded primarily in Dublin Castle in recent years. Honest politicians have been shocked by the revelations unfolding in Dublin Castle and elsewhere. The Government should not be judged by the problems which arose during the course of its administration.

Wishful thinking.

How it dealt with those problems is the acid test. The Government is dealing with the problem now by banning all large political donations. This is the first time such legislation has been introduced since the foundation of the State. The parties opposite were in Government before the last general election when some of these facts were in the public arena yet they chose not to take such action.

When Deputy Fleming was accounting officer for Fianna Fáil.

The next general election will be the first in the history of the State when provision will be in place for banning all large donations. I hope the media report this historic development. The media have reported the difficulties which have arisen from business, corporate and private donations from at home and overseas. I ask the media to give, not equal coverage but merely 1% of it, to this legislation which will ban such donations forever.

Forgive us, Lord, for we know not what we do.

I will be shocked if any Member of the Opposition presents a technical reason to oppose any aspect of this Bill. The essence of this Bill is the banning of large donations. Any party which opposes the Bill will have to answer for that to the public. This is the most important Bill of this Dáil.

I am pleased this Bill is being introduced. On 14 April, 1999 I submitted a report to the sub-committee on Government proposals for standards in public office. The sub-committee included a spokesperson for the Labour Party, Deputy Noonan who was spokesperson for Fine Gael, representatives of my own party and the Progressive Democrats and Independents. In my report I included a proposal to bring forward legislation to ban all large donations, provide additional State funding for political parties and ensure full public transparency and accountability in the auditing of those funds. Neither Labour, Fine Gael nor any other party agreed with my proposals and I was obliged to submit a minority report which is in the Oireachtas Library. I am pleased my party and the Opposition parties have now agreed to my proposals, to which they could not agree two years ago.

Two weeks later Deputy Quinn read out my proposals, verbatim, to his party's annual conference as the new policy for the Labour Party. When the sub-committee met the following week a member joked that Deputy Quinn should pay me royalties for using my text. I was happy that he had used it. I was equally happy that on his first day as leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Noonan also used my proposals, verbatim. My proposals are now official Fine Gael policy and I am happy the principle has unanimous support in the House. I have been ploughing a lone furrow—

The new Messiah.

—but a very fertile furrow. I have now succeeded in bringing the entire membership of mine and every other party to a consensus on the question of banning large political donations.

Deputy Fleming has referred to large donations. Does he regard a donation of £4,999 as large or small?

Maybe Deputy Fleming could answer that.

I am happy to answer that question. For an individual candidate such a sum is too large. That will not be allowed in this legislation.

Relative to the past it is a small donation.

In view of the funding being provided by the House and the funds collected by parties through raffles and collections, that would not be a large amount for a national political party. It would be a large donation for an individual.

How long is that piece of string?

When did Deputy Fleming raise £5,000 in a raffle?

This legislation ensures that no donation of more than £2,000 will be accepted by an individual candidate. That measure is very welcome. When we are asked by the public what we did to clean up politics, we can point to this afternoon's work in Dáil Éireann when an electoral reform Bill was introduced by a Minister of State from the Fianna Fáil Party on behalf of the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, and was supported by our Progressive Democrats partners in Government. That will stand the test of time.

The second most historic aspect of this legislation is the measure for dealing with expenditure limits, which have caused so much false upset on the other side of the House. The next general election will be the first in the history of the State which will be fought with expenditure limits. The parties opposite, on their last day in Government, introduced legislation on this issue but failed to implement it. They made sure it did not apply to themselves.

Deputy Fleming should look in the mirror when he says that.

The Opposition parties did not want this legislation to apply in the last general election.

The Deputy is going very close to the wire.

It fell to us in Government to implement legislation to limit expenditure on general elections.

You are not implementing it.

The next general election will be the first when these limits apply.

How much will Fianna Fáil spend on the next general election?

I will be glad to answer that question. The Fianna Fáil party will spend less on the next general election than on the last one. That is the purpose of this Bill.

How much did Fianna Fáil spend on the last general election?

I listened carefully to the words Deputy Gilmore chose. The Deputy has amnesia. He spoke about the Dublin North by-election and his party colleague's success in winning it. Deputy Gilmore's party colleague in that by-election was a member of the Worker's Party, of which Deputy Gilmore was then a member. The Workers' Party spent £16,049 to get 225 votes. That was an expenditure of £41.04 per vote which is an obscenity and should not be allowed to hap pen again. It was the worst level of expenditure per vote by any party or candidate in the history of the State.

How much did Fianna Fáil spend in the last general election?

This legislation will make sure the carry-on of Deputy Gilmore and his colleagues in recent years since his election to the Dáil will not continue.

How much did Fianna Fáil spend in the last general election? Deputy Fleming is the money man in Fianna Fáil. He is the man taking the cheques.

He forgot that.

The Fianna Fáil Party spent £1.88 per vote in by-elections during this Dáil. The figure for Fine Gael is £1.94, a reasonable figure. The Labour Party spent £2.14 per vote in each of the by-elections. Deputy Gilmore's former friends in whatever party he was a member of at the time of the Dublin North by-election were the highest spenders.

Deputy Gilmore referred to Dublin South-Central. I cite the figures that the Deputy gave. In the last by-election there were 21 candidates and this allowed for a total expenditure of £630,000 in respect of Dublin South-Central . If the Fianna Fáil Party has three candidates in this constituency in the next general election we will be entitled to a maximum of £90,000, about 15% of the expenditure, even though our vote will be well over 30% in that constituency.

This legislation penalises the larger parties who are running a number of candidates, as we will have less to spend than the smaller parties. In the next general election Fianna Fáil will run 110 or 115 candidates and, based on the last general election where there were 640 candidates nationwide, that would allow us to spend 25% of the total permitted election expenditure even though our vote will be in the region of 40% plus. Less money will be spent on the Fianna Fáil voters to get our message across.

Although the Fine Gael Party does not realise it yet, it will be penalised because it is the second biggest party. We will introduce that system and ensure it is implemented to the letter and in the spirit of the law. Fianna Fail, which represents 40% of the people, will have only 25% of the election spend in the next general election under this legislation.

The Deputy is not very optimistic.

The Deputy hardly expects to get an overall majority with that.

The bias is in favour of the small party and the independent candidate, and we are happy for it to be so. When the next election is over, the Fianna Fáil Party will not be the one to have spent most – the Labour Party and the other small parties will have spent most.

This is historic legislation as for the first time since the foundation of the State we will ban all large donations from the corporate and private sectors or from foreign sources. We are going to run the next general election with expenditure limits—

(Interruptions.)

No interruptions please, Deputy Burke.

—which the Opposition parties failed to implement when they were in Government before the last general election. The legislation was passed but not implemented, because the Government chickened out. I could throw mud and very easily speculate on why it was not implemented.

I do not think the Deputy could.

The Members who were part of one of the parties in that three-party coalition could answer that question as they won the day on that occasion. That will not happen this time as these limits will be introduced and implemented. I am shocked to hear people in the Opposition objecting in principle to the introduction of this legislation. If it is given a reasonable chance people will see how it works.

If this Dáil introduced no other legislation than to limit expenditure and donations, we would have done politics a service. We are doing that today. There is nothing but skitting and jeering from the Opposition because they know we are right.

(Interruptions.)

They know we are responding to public demand. The test of a Government is not the problems that hit it in the face, but how it responds to those problems. We are responding admirably and taking on board the views of the public long before a tribunal has to ask the House to consider these matters.

People here say they want a ban on donations but when they are given the opportunity—

That is not what the Deputy said before.

—they will vote down the legislation introducing these measures. An individual will always have a right to make a donation – one has a right to vote, a right to work, a right to forsake a day's pay to go on canvass and a right to make a small contribution. In future candidates will not be allowed to receive contributions over £2,000, and that is to be welcomed. I am happy to face the electorate with that on the next occasion.

I want to refer briefly to some of the other provisions in the Bill. The one aspect of what Deputy Gilmore said that I agree with is the current shambles regarding the register of electors. I do not have a problem with the local authorities maintaining the list, but I have a fundamental problem with their getting the names and compiling the information. There is only one organisation fit to do this job and that is An Post. I hope the Department people are listening and do not entertain any other semi-State body. It calls to every house every day with addressed letters to named people. Some people have the notion that it is simply a matter of everyone who has a phone or ESB bill – that is daft. An Post knows the people and any other body would be wrong. It should be given the job immediately as it is going to households every day and knows better than anyone who is on the register. I want clarification about the edited register. Will the main register be published as well?

I am concerned about the phrase "for statutory and commercial reasons". Can a Deputy or public representative use it in the proper performance of their duties? It seems to be vague and it is not sufficient to say that it can only be used for statutory purposes. I think the balance is wrong on this occasion – there is a hypersensitivity to usage for commercial activity. We only get the odd letter here and there, and we get junk mail from local supermarkets every day through the letterbox. Last December or January the Government issued a letter to every house based on the register of electors informing people where their millennium tree was planted. That envelope had the AIB logo stamped on it as they part sponsored the project. Under this legislation such a case would be illegal. I do not think that was the intention, nor should it have been. We have gone over the top on this, and if it comes in we are stuck with it. That needs to be addressed.

Electronic voting is a good measure and will facilitate quick counting. Photographs and emblems will assist people who cannot read well. Tally information should continue to be available. While respecting the secrecy of the ballot, it should be produced per polling station. Where the numbers are sufficiently low as indicated in the Act, the identification of voters will be prevented. The tallymen are members of the public representing the candidate and are not a foreign species. In the memorandum there is a reference to the public including tallymen, as if to say they were from outer space. They are part of the public and should not be so identified.

The rule regarding one poster per candidate or per party when it is within 50 metres of the polling station must be revisited. The proposal is against the McKenna judgment. In Laois-Offaly there are four Fianna Fáil candidates and ten other candidates in the field, all of whom are entitled to equal treatment. Each of them has a poster within the vicinity of the polling station, subject to the requirements of this law. It is wrong that four candidates should have only one poster. It discriminates against any party with more than one candidate. It is illegal in that it is not treating all candidates equally. This requires that only three or four words be taken out.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I found it hard to sit here and listen to the back of the lorry tactics of Deputy Fleming. It is a long time since we heard such justification of the current position, but I know he was sent out to bat today.

Considering that Deputy Fleming was the financial officer for the Fianna Fáil Party while so much of what this Bill is trying to correct was there, it is regrettable that he did not say that he was there and made a mistake as he did not realise it was going on.

I made no mistake. I have never made a mistake.

If the Deputy is declaring today that he has never made a mistake then he has not lived.

(Interruptions.)

Acting Chairman

Deputy Burke it is not allowed to make a charge against a fellow Member.

I did not make a charge.

Acting Chairman

I ask you to withdraw the implication.

I withdraw the accusation if he takes it like that. What I am saying to Deputy Fleming is that it is as if all of those things were happening without his knowledge. That is my point. He comes into the House and can just wipe out all the past happenings within his party and pretend they did not happen. We are here to introduce the most important legislation in the lifetime of this Government. I suggest that the Deputies opposite should look into a mirror and see themselves.

What about the Telenor donations?

If that is the road the Deputy is taking, I can if he wishes list all the contributions to his party.

Acting Chairman

I ask Deputies to deal with the Bill and with the contents of the Bill, please.

I find it difficult to sit here listening to that garbage, knowing the source of it, particularly since that Deputy held a financial position. I am very proud that on becoming leader of the Fine Gael party, Deputy Michael Noonan in his first statement said he would ban corporate donations to the party. He saw the necessity for such a statement. He realised that many of the electorate and members of the public increasingly did not want to participate in politics and this is seen in the declining numbers who come out to vote. He decided that corporate donations were to be banned and I welcome and support that decision. This House has given a great deal of time since the last general election in 1997 to the discussion of the tribunals of inquiry, their terms of reference, all the associated events and also the personalities who have been involved in the activities being investigated. We have lost so much time during the lifetime of this Government because of the situation. Day after day, information was being revealed and spun out, one item more shattering than the next. People in very privileged positions in society were under scrutiny. They were elected to do a job in this House as legislators. The reality is that they were feathering their own nests in a most inappropriate manner, with public and corporate finances. That should not have happened.

If this legislation does anything, I hope it will indicate to the electorate that we are making some attempt to rectify the chronic situation that pertained up until the revelations at the tribunals. The proposal in this Bill is to limit expenditure to £20,000, £25,000 and £35,000 in two, three and five – seater constituencies respectively. The public will be shocked and outraged to think that any candidate and any party would spend such amounts in order to fight an election.

The Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children is sitting opposite and I ask him to justify allowing such amounts of election expenditure at a time when there are long hospital waiting lists and elderly people lying on hospital trollies. How can this expenditure be justified when people are being denied access to a proper health service? Perhaps the Minister will explain.

When we talk about elector apathy, we must realise the situation in the health area is part of it. People see that we feather our own nests and take every opportunity to provide finances for ourselves while the people who are in pain are denied service because of budgetary constraints. It does not go down well with the public.

I have been a member of a local authority since 1974. I note the shoddy manner in which the registers of electors have been compiled up to now. It is a haphazard, hit and miss operation. Everybody has a right to be included on the register and there is a mechanism in place which could assist in the compilation of the registers. All children are now registered and issued with a number under the Social Welfare Acts. They are assigned a number which is theirs for life. In the past, the local authorities used the local rate collectors or the finance officer of the local authority. This was a hit and miss method in many cases and it is no wonder young people become unenthusiastic about using their votes. They often go to the polling station and find that their names are not on the register. It could be said that we all have a duty to seek out our vote and ensure that our names are on the list, but we can all be negligent at times. We should seek to co-ordinate between the local authorities who are the statutory bodies assigned to compile the registers and the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs who now have a register of every person. It should be an automatic transfer of details from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs to the electoral register.

Many young people are students and live away from home and so are temporarily resident in other areas. The past ten years has seen a huge transfer of population from rural areas to urban areas. People can live anonymously in an urban environment without affiliation or association with the public representatives of that area. They may have had no reason, as of yet, to make contact with them. They have often lost their local identification and their will to exercise their franchise. They should be given the option of registering in their own home area and then be given a facility to transfer to the new location. The situation as it currently exists is not satisfactory. There is need for reform in that area.

I welcome some of the suggestions in the Bill. There should be automatic registration of the voter in his original area and that vote could then be transferred to the new area of residence. If they wanted to transfer their vote to their new residential area, it would be a simpler procedure as they would be able to say they had a vote and were registered. Those who live temporarily in an area and wish to vote in their original area should be allowed do so. To be included in the register of electors one has to be resident in a particular area on a date in September. If that rule is allowed to persist, it will make it difficult to register in the current environment. Perhaps the Minister will investigate the possibility of making it easier to register.

People are registered at 18 years of age and allowed to vote. However they have to be 21 years before they can stand for election. Many young people say they are asked to vote but yet are not allowed stand for election until they are 21 years. If we are serious about getting young people interested, there is no better way than allowing them to come along and support one of their peers. Given the way in which they respond to their peer groups it is important to recognise that if they had a candidate, it would be an incentive for them to vote rather than to vote for others with whom they may not have had any contact. This issue should be considered. Given that 18 year olds are allowed vote, the Minister should consider allowing candidates of that age to stand for election. This might eliminate some of the apathy among young voters and would allow them to support somebody within their own peer group.

I have not seen any provision in the Bill dealing with opinion polls in the run-up to elections. Whether one can attribute to an opinion poll a shift in thinking or in the ultimate result of an election is difficult to determine. Two weeks prior to an election no opinion poll should be allowed. Such opinion polls may be held a reasonable time prior to those two weeks. No opinion poll in any tabloid or media of any kind should be allowed in the two weeks prior to an election. At the last election Sir Anthony's newspaper had a message to give – pay back time – which many would say was influential. That was unacceptable and I hope will never be allowed to happen again. However, an attempt might be made. Such messages as a result of an opinion poll on the eve of an election or a couple of days before should be banned. At least radio and television have strict guidelines whereby they cannot mention the election or have any discussion of a political nature on the day immediately prior to an election. That is welcome. The same should hold for the print media. For that reason I hope opinion polls will be banned for a reasonable period prior to elections. The number of days provided for is not sufficient.

In recent days all public representatives in the House have received a letter from independent broadcasters stating that the ban on political advertising on radio and television prior to elections should be lifted. It is a difficult one to call but if political advertising is allowed, the situation of independents as against the national media would be a sensitive area and the only way in which it can be dealt is by allowing the ban to remain as long as there is a belief in some quarters that some personalities or directors have connections with political parties and personnel across the board, whether in the national broadcasting organisation or elsewhere. We have often heard allegations made inside and outside the House that certain personalities within certain broadcasting organisations were affiliated to one political party or another. Hence personnel from those parties would get more exposure than others. That is a scenario we should avoid in the interests of fair play to all involved. I have no doubt there will be pressure on all public representatives to have the ban lifted. If that were to happen, it would be regrettable.

Voting by means of computerisation is a serious issue. It would be welcome and speed up and facilitate the process. Many of those involved in political blood sports in the media would lose out, whether at local or national level, including the tallies. I fear that the introduction of computerised voting would be inappropriate because many elderly people, and others, would not be familiar with a computer and the machines to be provided. If we draw a parallel between electronic voting and the introduction of the euro, which is much more basic as we are all familiar with money, whatever the Government has to do to educate the electorate would be a disaster. To introduce electronic voting on such a basis at this time would be unsatisfactory and mean that privacy would not be maintained.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution on this important legislation. I compliment the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, and his departmental officials on drafting progressive legislation. I am sure the Minister regrets he was unable to be present to read his Second Stage speech. However, I have no doubt he will be back to take Committee Stage fully recovered from his recent illness.

I heard Deputy Gilmore's contribution. Apart from some of the hysteria about the activities of other parties he was selective in his history lessons. He seemed to recall the misdemeanours of a small number of people in other political parties. I would not try to defend the people involved. There was wrongdoing by a small number of people involved in political life here some years ago. That was reprehensible and the activities in which they engaged were wrong and certainly not befitting people involved in public life.

I recall a report in the newspapers some years ago about the Workers Party seeking funding from Eastern Europe and elsewhere for special activities. When people make broad-based allegations, they should not be so selective. It is quite unfair to make very generalised statements about wrongdoing. I condemn wrongdoing by anybody involved in politics from any party. Regardless of their party, the overwhelming majority of people ever elected to Dáil Éireann have worked to the highest standards and in the best interests of the public.

I agree with Deputy Gilmore's concern at the low turn-out for elections and referenda. In the referenda two weeks ago, the national turnout was 34%. That is extremely disappointing. There were three important questions put to the electorate for decision. I do not agree with the decision made on the Nice treaty, but I accept and fully respect that decision. My county, Cavan, voted "Yes" to the Nice treaty. The constituency of Cavan-Monaghan did not, but I was very glad that Cavan voted almost 53% in favour.

In May 1998 we had the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement and the Amsterdam treaty referendum on the same day. That was the first time since 1918 that this country, the 32 counties, had the opportunity and privilege to vote on the one day on the same question. The turnout for that referendum was 56.26%. That has to be a disappointing figure, considering the importance of the question before the electorate. The people, North and South, were being asked if we wanted to set up new political institutions and have a new political dispensation on this island. I am very glad that the overwhelming response was "Yes". However we must be disappointed that the turnout was only 56.26%. Bearing in mind the 30 years of troubles on this island, we had the chance to begin a new political chapter with new institutions to ensure that those days of trouble were behind us, yet only just more than half the electorate bothered to vote.

In 1937, when Eamon de Valera put the draft constitution to the people, there was a 75% turnout, which was the highest ever turnout for a referendum. Nobody can say it is more difficult for people to vote now than it was in 1937. Those of us from rural Ireland know that the overwhelming majority of the people had to walk to the polling stations. There were no vehicles and there may not even have been a bicycle in most houses, but the people were determined to go out and vote for or against the draft constitution. Great credit is due to those people who chose to play their part in the electoral system. Many people voting that day would have been particularly proud that since 1922 we had our own system of Government. Even though the Government had changed by 1937, they were still anxious to participate in the electoral process and make it work.

I do not accept the excuse that people are busier today or do not have time to go to the polling stations. Deputy Gilmore is wrong. The polling stations two weeks ago were open at 8 a.m. The overwhelming majority of people are not away from home from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. I know of some elderly people without transport, who went out of their way to go to the polling station because they accepted it as their duty to cast their votes. There is a huge educational experience needed to remind the people that our electoral and political process, despite its failings and misgivings, is our democratic system and people should go out and cast their votes.

The turnout for the recent referenda was 34%. All of us in this House were enthusiastic about the Good Friday Agreement, as were the majority of political parties north of the Border. The two governments worked to ensure that agreement was accepted and yet just over half of the electorate turned out. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by Government and the political parties on a cross-party basis. Do we need a better civics and political education system, particularly at second level? Do we need it at third level even? It would be disastrous if we continued to see a decline in the number of people participating in the electoral process.

The other time there was a good turnout at a referendum was in 1971 when we were asked if we should accede to membership of the European Economic Community. The turnout then was 70%. Fortunately, since that good decision was made, this country has progressed very substantially. That progress is not confined to one part of the country. Deputy Connaughton and I coming from the west and north-west of the country, complain with some justification that we have not had the level of regional and economic development that other parts of the country had. However, fortunately we have had good development and continue to have it. The face of rural Ireland has changed beyond recognition and mainly for the good since our accession to the European Community in 1973.

This is an important Bill and is part of a corpus of legislation dealing with the electoral system and standards in public life. The Standards in Public Office Bill is currently before the Oireachtas. The standards in public office commission will investigate complaints involving public office holders, Members of the Oireachtas and various public servants. The commission will take on the role of the Public Offices Commission in relation to the ethics Act and the electoral Acts. This legislation provides for the creation for tax clearance requirements for politicians, senior public servants and judges. It will also ensure that a code of conduct will apply to office holders, Members of the Oireachtas and public servants. The Standards in Public Office Bill provides for a regime for dealing with breaches of the legislation. This Bill will help to ensure that those who lead our society and run our public services are seen to act in an ethical and impartial manner.

I was part of the Members' interests committee which drafted a sensible and purposeful code of conduct for Members of the Oireachtas. Other legislation before the Oireachtas will work in tandem with the Electoral (Amendment) Bill to improve standards and set parameters within which public representatives must work. I refer to the prevention of corruption legislation, the Local Government Bill, 2000 and the whistle blowers legislation. I understand the Government will shortly bring forward amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Bill, 2000, to provide a new statutory basis for the prevention, prosecution and punishment of corruption. The Local Government Bill, 2000, which gives statutory and constitutional recognition to local government, is very progressive and far seeing. I compliment the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, on bringing forward that legislation.

This Electoral (Amendment) Bill provides, for the first time, for the introduction of maximum limits of £5,000 on political donations to political parties and campaign groups and £2,000 to individual public representatives and election candidates. It also provides for prohibition of acceptance of donations from an individual, other than an Irish citizen, who resides outside this island or a company which does not have an office in Ireland. It is important that political parties in Ireland should be funded from within the country and should not be dependant on funding from abroad. People who live abroad should not be in a position to bankroll political parties here. I welcome the requirement that all public representatives, unsuccessful election candidates and third parties who receive donations greater than £100 in any year for political purposes, must open a political donation account. Speaking for myself, I am not sure if I need to open an account at all, as I do not seem to get any of the donations which we read of in the newspapers. I believe that also goes for the overwhelming majority of Members in all political parties.

In introducing the Bill, the Minister of State spoke of the necessity to ensure that the electoral code is accurate, consistent and workable. This Bill is part of an ongoing review which is necessary to deal with inefficiencies and inaccuracies in relation to the register of electors. I have no doubt the register is open to widespread abuse. The failings of the present system in compiling the register and policing it can lead to wholesale theft of votes. That is not acceptable. I understand that, many years ago, the Garda Síochána was involved in compiling the register and in "policing" it to a certain extent. The present system of compiling the register is not working. It has not worked for some time and it is time to change the system. Deputy Fleming spoke of the possibility of involving An Post in its compilation. That is a very good idea and my local Fianna Fáil party organisation put it forward some years ago. The compilation should be carried out by An Post or An Gárda Síochána or by both. It is essential to have a register which is accurate and which is not open to abuse.

The funding of political parties has generated many headlines. In my personal view, political parties should be funded practically 100% by the State. Most of us in political parties spend a great deal of time going to small fund-raising functions, such as an Irish night in a pub, a whist drive, a card drive, a dinner dance or a social night. In our developing society, less people are involving themselves in voluntary organisations, including sporting, social and political organisations. People involved in community games, Gaelic football or other sporting disciplines are consistently telling us that there are less people taking on duties in the running of clubs and organisations. The same is happening in political parties, with fewer people involving themselves in political activity. This is partly due to the fact that the majority of people are now in employment, which is, of course, a welcome development but it means that people have less free time. However, it is generally the busy person who is willing to give a helping hand when needed.

Now that this Bill provides for increased funding for registered political parties, I hope we will move, during the coming years, towards having an even larger scale of funding of political parties directly from the Exchequer. If our democratic system is to work properly, we need political parties which are properly resourced. Whether in Government or in opposition, political parties have a vital role to play in the political process. Their financial resources should not have to depend on the efforts of public representatives to go about raising badly needed funds to keep their parties solvent and, perhaps, to pay off debts incurred in previous elections. There is a very strong case for more State funding of political parties. In some European countries, possibly in Germany, I believe there is even state funding for churches, which are allocated a share of the taxes raised, in accordance with a nomination by individual taxpayers of the church of their choice. We need to convince the public that the political system needs funding to enable it to survive and function properly. It is undesirable to have political parties funded solely from the corporate sector. This Bill sets realistic limits for curtailing donations to political parties, and rightly so.

I welcome the provision for having photographs and party political emblems on ballot papers. In the Minister of State's speech, he referred to the difficulties a person with literacy difficulties can encounter in a polling station. The problems of such people have been ignored for far too long. In many cases, they were too shy to let it be known they had literacy difficulties. I particularly welcome the fact that such a person will now be enabled to bring a companion voter. A person with some literacy difficulty but who does not need a companion voter, will be helped by the inclusion of the party political emblems and the photographs on the ballot paper.

I hope this important Bill will be implemented quickly. I again compliment the Minister, the Minister of State and the Department officials on bringing it forward. It runs parallel to other Bills currently before the Oireachtas which, collectively, will enhance our political system and our democratic structures.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2001. I do not have the same degree of pride about parts of this Bill as some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies who spoke, particularly Deputy Fleming who said there has not been better legislation since the foundation of the State. Part of the contribution made by Deputy Brendan Smith was very sensible. There were aspects of it with which I would agree, and I will come to that later.

There is a huge flaw in this Bill regarding the question of corporate donations. It is neither the intention nor is it possible for the Government parties to confine the amount of money they will get from corporations to less than £5,000. Whatever suspicions I have, they are certainly shared by the public because of the track record principally, although not exclusively, of the Fianna Fáil Party – the architects of sleaze down through the years if ever I saw any. It is coming out in bucket loads. How do we expect the public to want to vote when they see that type of carry on?

When Fianna Fáil was going as "far" as it said it was, I cannot understand why it decided not to ban corporate funding. It did not say that because the link with the business community is so strong, and that is where the cream is. I will not dwell on it because the public knows all about it. If one took a vox pop of ten people outside the gates of the House and asked them if there should be corporate funding of political parties, nine out of ten would say there should not. There should not be corporate funding of political parties because it is not possible to—

The Deputy should ask them if they want to fund them 100%.

Deputy Power knows the background to this. He does not have a leg to stand on.

One of the legitimate questions raised by Deputies on all sides was why more people do not vote in elections. The answer is contained somewhere in this sleaze. In recent years a culture has developed which will take decades to wash or cleanse from the system. People believe there is an unhealthy connection between big business and politicians, particularly parties that have been in Government for a long time. Everyone knows of whom I speak.

Given the degree of suspicion among the public – this applies to all parties, it is not a party political matter – Exchequer funding of elections will happen. Reading between the lines and given that Exchequer funding to all the political parties has been increased from £1 million to £3 million, it would appear that is what the Government is thinking as well. As the years go by, there will be more Exchequer funding and less money coming from elsewhere. Some taxpayers will cynically say, "How dare you use my tax to pay for a poster to put on a poll". However, they cannot have it both ways. I spend endless hours at draws, duck races and the devil knows what to keep the election machinery going, as do all my colleagues. That is not what I was elected to do but even allowing for that, there must be a sharing of responsibility – a type of contract between politicians and the electorate. If the suspicion in regard to the funding of general and other elections is to be removed, we had better move to the continental system as soon as we can and get the taxpayer to fund them with very strict controls. It will be possible to impose strict controls because they will be Exchequer funded.

I know there will be a backlash. If I remember correctly, there was talk about this when the rainbow Government was in office. There appeared to be all-party consensus and then it appeared that Fianna Fáil in Opposition was totally against it. I do not know what the reaction of the public would be at this stage but if we are to remove the suspicion, we will have to work towards that. That is a view I have held for many years. I have seen it work in a number of countries. If the electorate believes the connection between big business and politics is wrong, a new contract should be entered into. It would mean that the taxpayer would fund the electoral system but at least it would be transparent and controllable. Above all else, people would know what everyone is doing.

Another matter which I find hard to take relates to the raising of the limits on election spending. The Minister made the case that given inflation and the cost of living, the limits are not much higher than those at the last general election. The only problem is that any increase always suits the largest party in the State because, for obvious reasons, it has a better chance of getting more money. There was no great need to raise the limits. In my experience in Galway East, a lot of money is unwisely spent at elections by all parties. This ceiling should have been left, or increased only marginally.

I have seen the machines that are likely to be used for electronic voting. I do not have the same hang up about it as some of my colleagues who have spoken. There is no good reason not to move to electronic voting. There are, however, a number of things that would worry me about it. I never worry what happens to votes once they are cast. I worry about them before they go into the box because somebody is paid to look after the box and they will come out of it if they go in. I assume they will be counted if they go into the electronic machine. The important thing for me is to get enough people to vote for me, and I am sure the same goes for the Minister of State. That is the great intent in this business.

I find it hard to convince the public that electronic voting works when we do not have it in this House. People see us walking through the lobbies wasting half an hour of our time voting because we do not have electronic voting in Parliament. I find that hard to understand, as does the public. This may be brought in on a trial basis, but I am beginning to think the momentum is declining, even though I am for it. I would like to see it done on an experimental basis. It is terribly important, in whatever constituency the experiment is carried out, that trained help is available on the day of the poll to help people use the system. The screen I saw appeared to be very simple and one which most people could adapt to, but the sight of a computer screen puts off an awful lot of people, particularly the elderly. I hope great efforts will be made to ensure that it is explained in such a way that people will have confidence to use the system, but that their voting rights are not interfered with.

Deputy Gilmore said this might be an outdated system. I am not aware of that. I find it difficult to understand how a system allows, for example, a voter in Cork who is registered in Galway and who is in Dublin on polling day, to cast their vote in a Dublin polling booth for the constituency of Galway East. I hope that is possible. I do not know if it is available in any country, but it would be a wonderful step forward if it were to be available here. I wonder how it could be controlled, but I assume there are ways to do that. Needless to say, if we are to introduce this system we must use the best possible system available. This is something which cannot be easily changed between elections.

I have a few concerns about the type of ballot paper and emblems or photographs to be included on it. When I voted in the recent referenda I thought the ballot papers were poorly produced. Voters would have had to look at the paper a few times to be sure they knew in which referendum they were voting. We spoke about this matter in the Dáil several times. I can well imagine that a lot of voters looked at the papers and were not quite sure which one was for which. I know it was a simple "Yes" or "No" vote, but what they were for did not stand out. With advances in graphic design and colour printing I could not understand why the ballot papers were so drab.

It is well known that there are many people who are unable to read or write. The problem for many of them is that they will not go to a polling booth because they do not want it known that they are illiterate. I have met a number of people in my constituency who told me the reason they did not vote was that they were afraid they would have to tell somebody they do not know how to cast their vote. There is no doubt that the use of photographs will make a big difference. They were used in the last European Parliament elections to great effect. I was told privately by a number of people that they found it helpful. It is also a help for people who have poor eyesight. This is something which should be extended to general elections.

It is important, and I think it is contained in the Bill, that a blown up sample ballot paper be in place at each polling station; at least I think that is what the Minister is proposing. It would provide for people a graphic representation of the type, shape and content of the ballot paper. That is a good idea and whoever came up with it knew what they were doing in trying to assuage the fears of people when they reach the voting booth. It is also a good idea to provide for companion voting, that people with impaired sight should be given the opportunity to have a companion voter. I do not think it would lead to abuses if it were properly controlled. That would bring out a certain number of people who might not otherwise vote.

Everyone has something to say about the electoral register. In my time in the House I have seen several attempts at producing the definitive electoral register. Although it should be possible to do that it does not seem to work. Several Governments in the past 20 years have tried to get it right but for whatever reason we are no further forward today than 20 years ago. I will not waste time going through some of the things I saw at the last general and council elections. It amazes me that people's entitlement to vote is withdrawn without their knowledge. Some people could have lived and been registered in the same place for 25 years, voted in the same school but have their name suddenly taken off the register. I assume that is a human error made in the local council office, but it is very difficult to say that to a constituent whose entitlement to vote was withdrawn without reason.

Deputy Smith suggested that it might be better to use a different agency such as An Post or An Garda Síochána. Unless that were to be done at local level, and it would be more difficult in the cities than in the countryside, it would be very difficult to develop a system that is 100% effective. People move house while others leave the country for short periods so it would be difficult to maintain. Whatever we do, there must be a process which allows people to be added to a supplementary register very shortly before an election. I see reference in the Bill to a "rolling register". I assume that means that it is possible to be put on the register at any time of the year. That can only be seen as a good idea. I assume that it will have administrative problems but it is nonetheless something which should be done. I always thought there must be some agency that had a record of births which could be used. Unfortunately my theory does not stand up, many babies are not registered where they are born. In my innocence I had thought that a register of births would allow an agency to send notification to young people when they turned 18 that they were entitled to apply for a vote. I am told that is not possible.

Under this Bill it will be possible for political parties to erect posters and canvass within 50 metres of a polling station. I am not sure which Government brought in the rule to keep election workers away from polling stations. It may have been this Government, but whoever it was I compliment them. The carry on of canvassing voters on their way in the door of the polling station was as outdated as they come. I advise the Minister of State not to return to the practice of canvassing that near polling stations.

This is one of a number of Bills the Government and a previous Government found it necessary to introduce to deal with a changing Ireland, having regard to many of the revelations that have come to light at the various tribunals in recent months and years.

I listened to some of the contributions and, in some respects, many of them were predictable. There is no point in blaming any party for what went on in the past. Very few of us in the House had any hand, act or part in it or in what is being dealt with at the tribunals. A number of individuals have found themselves in a difficult position and have been called before the tribunals to explain their actions. We should await the decisions of the tribunals rather than make judgments here.

As a political party and the major party in government, it is important that we take corrective action and introduce whatever legislation we see fit to try as best we can to prevent the wrongs committed in the past from being repeated in the future. There has been an increase in cynicism among the public about all political parties in recent years. When one person gets into trouble, we are all tarred with the same brush and members of the public are often heard to say, "They are all the same, none of them is any different". Many of the revelations at the tribunals reinforce that public perception. It is important that we take the lead in restoring public faith in the democratic process. I am convinced that most public representatives give of their time and make an honest effort to represent those who elect them. It is a great honour and privilege to be chosen to contest an election and then to be elected. While we are all conscious of our rights, that honour brings with it certain responsibilities. I am sure most Members do their best to live up to the responsibilities that public office brings.

Speaking from a Fianna Fáil point of view, many of the revelations have caused great embarrassment for members, particularly elderly members, of our party, who worked extremely hard for it in difficult times. It is a slap in the face to them when they hear the vulgarity of some of the revelations at the tribunals. The current leadership is concerned and trying to introduce new procedures to prevent the sins of the past from being committed again.

This is an extensive Bill. Opposition Members have been selective in some of their criticisms although I accept it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose and identify weaknesses in a Bill. I am not that blind in that I am aware that it is very seldom that any Bill introduced is 100%, as the Minister, Deputy Walsh, found out during the week when he had the good sense to withdraw part of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Bill. It is up to Ministers to listen to good arguments made in the House. It is a sign of maturity if they can accept common sense proposals from Members.

There has been a certain attempt inside and outside the House to demonise the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, in recent weeks. That is most unfortunate. I have been a good friend of his for a number of years and learned things about him in recent days that I did not know, but that should not surprise too many. As Minister and even when in opposition, he engaged in widespread consultation before he drew up his policies and now that he is Minister for the Environment and Local Government he is endeavouring to implement some of them. As to the idea that he is trying to push through legislation or show a certain arrogance, nothing could be further from the truth. No Minister has gone about trying to consult as widely as he has. I wish him well with the legislation. I also wish him a speedy recovery and hope he is back in the House in the very near future.

One of the most important proposals in the Bill is the introduction of electronic voting about which some Members have expressed reservations. That is only natural, as we are still very much a conservative country in many respects and very reluctant to change. I am convinced that the introduction of electronic voting is the best way forward. We talk about proportional representation. Electronic voting is the purest form of proportional representation one could get. We have all been at counts in our constitutencies where a candidate was expecting to get a No. 2 or a No. 3 from a colleague, but when the votes were counted it did not work out that way. The reason for that is that the current system is not as good as it should be. When it comes to distributing votes, often random samples are taken which do not give a really accurate account of the total votes cast. There can be no denying the differ ence between electronic voting and the voting that has taken place up to now. With electronic voting all votes will be counted and it will give us a much more accurate account of the people's intentions. From that point of view it must be welcomed.

People have expressed concern about the difficulty older people, in particular, would have in using these machines. To the best of my knowledge they have been used already in an experimental way during the last Dublin by-election and I understand will be used in the Tipperary South by-election. From my information the experiment of using them in the last Dublin by-election worked very well. The Minister has given his word that he will introduce electronic voting in a number of constituencies. I am not sure how these constitutencies will be selected, but I have no difficulty in offering Kildare South as a guinea pig for the occasion and I hope they throw up the right result. Irrespective of what constituencies are picked for this experiment, it is important that a major public relations campaign is conducted in the constituencies concerned to reassure voters that it is a fair system, similar to the way in which they have voted up to now, will be secret and nobody will know for whom a person voted. It is important that those who might be wary of modern technology would be reassured and that it would be clearly explained to them how the system operates. As in the case of the recent referendum, it can be difficult to explain something when some are not terribly interested in it. It is important that a campaign is undertaken well before the next election, which will probably be held next April or May.

I take exception to the contribution by Deputy Gilmore. He said the reason for the changes in the Bill is that Fianna Fáil has not had a successful by-election since the last general election. There have been a number of by-elections and it was no great surprise that we did not win them. The majority of them were not caused by the loss of Fianna Fáil seats. Generally, the seats were held by other parties. If the Deputy waits a few days he will see a major increase in the Fianna Fáil vote in the Tipperary by-election.

His assertion that Fianna Fáil is trying to buy its way back to power was an insult to the electorate and to Fianna Fáil. We have no need to buy our way back to power; we can stand on our record since 1997. Fianna Fáil has much to be proud of. One of the biggest problems facing this country in 1997 was unemployment. Since our election to office four years ago, more than 300,000 new jobs have been created and the unemployment rate has been more than halved to just 3.6%. The total workforce is now just over 1.7 million. That achievement would have been seen as almost impossible some years ago. However, with the proper policies, a Taoiseach who is in touch with what is happening in the country and a Minister for Finance who was prepared to take unpopular decisions which ulti mately proved to be of benefit to the country, the country has enjoyed tremendous success in the past four years.

Deputy Gilmore, and others, spoke about the link between business and politics. It is easy to use the catch cry of big business but most Members of the House have little or no involvement with big business. For most Members, running for election involves running local fund raising events such as race nights and raffles. Different units of the organisations do this to pay their bill. Any organisation needs a certain amount of money to run it but I see no sign of the thousands of pounds mentioned in the tribunals being scattered around Kildare.

With the new election expenditure limits being introduced by the Minister of £20,000 in a three seater constituency, £25,000 in a four seater and £30,000 in a five seater, there will be no need for politicians to engage in major fund raising or to be given large donations by individuals. They are unnecessary. The limits proposed by the Minister of £2,000 for an individual and £5,000 for a political party are reasonable. They will have to be recorded and accounted for. I will have no difficulty operating within the new limits and had no difficulty operating within the old ones.

However, as Deputy Connaughton said, there has been terrible waste of money during election campaigns by all political parties. Sometimes the expenditure to sell our message and win votes is nothing short of an insult to the public. I cannot see what difference there is between a business giving me money and an individual doing so. Great play has been made about corporate donations but Dr. Tony O'Reilly who lives in my constituency – he has never given me money and I have not sought any from him – can send me £1,000 in the morning on his own behalf but if he sent me £500 on behalf of Independent Newspapers, I would have to refuse it. I cannot see the difference.

Businesses are made up of people. They are run by people and people work in them so it makes little difference whether people are wearing their corporate hat or private hat. People should accept the fact that the limits have been reduced to what are considered realistic levels and stop this codology in the House about corporate donations. It might sound good, and with the revelations in the tribunals there is huge competition in the House to see which party is the whitest, but members of the public are not stupid. They realise all parties have had difficulties with particular individuals. By and large, it is how we deal with them, learn from them and the rules and procedures we put in place for the future that the public will be watching.

Another issue I wish to discuss is salaries for county councillors. I was elected in the last local election to Kildare County Council. To a large extent it is a continuation of the job I have been doing as a Deputy since I was first elected to the House in 1989. While I would like to be able to continue to represent the people at that level, perhaps more so to have access to county council meetings—

That matter is dealt with in another Bill.

That is right.

The Deputy should not anticipate the debate on that Bill.

We are discussing the Electoral (Amendment) Bill. I am not looking to be compensated for local authority membership. I cannot see what difference there is between working at local authority level and at national level. To a large extent there is duplication of the work.

It would be difficult for a Minister to make such a move but we would be better off if all Members of the House were paid the same salary and if the allowances and expenses were eliminated. Every now and again we have to put up with reports in the newspapers about telephone allowances, secretarial allowances and so forth, as if we were trying to hide them. It would be better if Deputies were paid £100,000 per year from which they could pay for a constituency office and employ secretaries, researchers and other staff. Pay all Members the same amount and forget this codology of expenses for different telephones, offices and the like. The public would know exactly what we earn and it would cut out much of the nonsense written in the newspapers about Members' expenses. By and large our offices are understaffed and we are not given the resources to do the job we were elected to do.

Every effort must be made to ensure that everybody who is entitled to vote is on the register of electors and is given every opportunity to vote in elections. To a large extent, this Bill will succeed in doing that. I wish it a speedy passage through the House.

I welcome many aspects of this Bill but I am extremely disappointed that the thorny issue of corporate donations has not been grasped properly. It is important to stress that the Green Party was the first party in this House to call for a ban on corporate donations. This is not an attempt to be whiter than white, as Deputy Power suggested; it is just a fact. We called for a ban on corporate donations because we could see there was a clear link between corporate donations and electoral success, but that success was bought. We continue to hold that view and it is something with which I will deal later.

This is a missed opportunity. While I welcome certain aspects of the Bill, there are others where important issues have been ignored which perhaps may not appear at first glance to be important.

I welcome the streamlining of voter registration but I suggest that there is an issue here which the Minister has ignored, the computerisation of the register, which may seem like a small issue. Many Deputies will be aware that the register is now looked after by the local authority and the attention it is given can vary considerably from local authority to local authority. Some local authorities are quite good and they produce the register in an accessible form in ASCII text and everything is done properly. Others are notoriously bad. For the sake of Deputies, I want the Minister to intervene here stating the way it must be done in order that there is a proper register. It could be done in Microsoft Access or ASCII and laid out properly. At present there is chaos but it would be a simple task for the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to put right. We require that standardisation as quickly as possible.

I agree that those voters who want to maintain their privacy should be entitled to do so. The last thing a voter wants is to have junk mail being sent from commercial enterprises. It is extremely important that their wishes in that regard would be respected.

Another aspect which could have been dealt with in the Bill is the question of the marked register. Some Deputies will be aware that, following the local elections, the marked register was made available to Deputies and this proved invaluable in many cases. One could see immediately who had voted and who had not. Some of my colleagues, particularly Deputy Gregory, have told me some interesting stories about this, that when constituents telephone and say they will not vote again for the Deputy unless he or she takes a certain course of action, the Deputy is able to say that the person did not vote at all. On such occasions a Deputy experiences an eerie silence on the other end of the line when the person realises he or she has been found out.

Voting is a civic duty. I do not wish to erode civil liberties but we should encourage people to vote. I am not suggesting that voting should be mandatory but if someone does not have the civic spirit to go down to the polling station and vote, people generally and prospective employers ought to know that. If people wish, they should register a protest vote or spoiled vote. We, as elected representatives, should have a right to know and that marked register should be publicly available throughout the year. If that were the case, it would encourage many more people to vote. Will the Minister consider if he can arrange for that marked register to be made available, not just in hard copy form but in computerised form?

I welcome the fact that there will be photographs of candidates and party emblems on the ballot paper. That worked well during the elections for the European Parliament. It is an important step forward in terms of dealing with certain unpalatable aspects of electioneering. I am referring to the question of what are known in political parlance as "spoilers". I have had direct experience of that. At the last general election in 1997, an individual with a name similar to mine suddenly appeared, a Mr. J. Gorman. He came out of nowhere, ran as an independent, just hap pened to be a member of the Progressive Democrats and was nominated one hour before the register of candidates closed. That sort of conduct is reprehensible as far as I am concerned. There are many people in my party who were extremely suspicious about what happened. It is interesting to note that people are very careful about where they place their first preference on the ballot paper but take less care with their other preferences. It was noticeable in that mammoth recount in which I was involved that people, who voted along the lines of Deputy Fitzgerald, No. 1 and Deputy Quinn, No. 2, gave their third preference to this individual where they had really intended to vote for me. I certainly lost out as a consequence. I am glad that this provision is now in the Bill because this will not happen again. It is one of the oldest political tricks in the book, it is reprehensible and I hope it will not happen again. Such an occurrence will be avoided in future because the party emblems and photographs are now on the ballot paper.

I welcome the important changes in the registration of party names which the Minister has provided for in the Bill. This is an area in which one needs to take care and care is taken that one does not register a party of a similar name, which has happened in other countries. One must avoid at all costs a situation where, for instance, there would be Fianna Fáil and New Fianna Fáil in order that the electorate gets a clear choice and there is no confusion in the minds of voters.

I welcome the introduction of electronic voting. I have always said that initially we should use electronic voting here in the House but it would be very welcome in a general election context. The question I pose, to which Deputy Power referred, is: to what extent will the old system continue?

We know, for instance, that there is an arbitrary rule for dealing with the surplus vote. At present, one just skims the ballot papers off the top of the pile. Few understand fully the intricacies of proportional representation but this is one of the interesting situations, where, in the case of a surplus, one simply takes the ballot papers at the very top of the pile. One does not count the ballot papers again. That can give rise to certain anomalies. Perhaps the person, whose surplus is being redistributed, comes from a certain part of the constituency and therefore those ballot papers will favour one candidate to an extent. It is a practice which has not been challenged in the courts and it has pertained for 70 years.

I recall Deputy Briscoe saying to me at the recount in 1997 that in 70 years there have been recounts in many constituencies but there has not ever been a result overturned. Obviously those who are doing the counting are doing a good job but if electronic voting is in place and someone demands a recount, I would be interested to know, can they demand that it be done by hand? This is what happened in the US presidential elections, where electronic voting was used and the electronic voting did not work because there was the experience of the chad, etc. If one of the candidates said he was not happy with the machines here and asked could the recount be done by hand, I wonder would that request be acceded to by the returning officer.

Posters will be allowed in the streets approaching polling stations. This is important. While it may have seemed like a good idea to change to law to forbid posters and the distribution of leaflets outside polling stations, much of the buzz of polling day is gone. Many voters do not know the location of polling stations and it is reasonable, therefore, to allow for the display of posters outside stations, including a large one indicating the presence of the station, to ensure that voters know where they are located. The distribution of leaflets at stations was a cause of annoyance to many voters but the Minister should consider ensuring that polling stations are clearly identifiable. Perhaps each party should be allowed to have two posters outside, which would immediately identify them. Positioning posters 500 yards from stations will not assist in this regard.

The Minister missed an opportunity to deal with the continuing problem of personation. Many know of the story of Pat O'Connor, Pat O'Connor but the practice of voting early and often continues to present difficulties. Some parties specialise in this. There are many flats in my constituency which give people the opportunity to collect polling cards and vote as often as they like. Some form of identification should be requested.

The Minister must get tough on this aspect but he has not taken this opportunity to do so. I won my election to the Dáil by 27 votes while Deputy Spring was elected in 1987 by just four votes. Personation can win or lose elections. Perhaps the Minister will look at this again on Committee Stage, otherwise at the next general election some closely fought seats will be won because of personation. In a democracy that is unacceptable.

The Minister also missed the opportunity to regulate posters at election time. Many people complain about the number of posters at elections. It is a free for all. Candidates can put up as many posters as they wish. I have a photograph of the Minister's election poster nailed to a tree with six inch nails. Perhaps this was done by one of his supporters but it reflects badly on a Minister who has responsibility for the environment. Such practices do not happen abroad. In countries such as France and Germany, local authorities properly regulate the display of posters by designating areas where parties may show them. In our context it would mean each party is given, say, 400 sites throughout the constituency. In previous elections Green Party posters have been taken down but when the deadline for the removal of all posters has expired they have been put back up thus ensuring that the candidate received a litter fine. This would not happen where the display of posters was regulated and monitored. A simple amendment to the Bill would ensure that littering caused by posters would cease.

I am often asked why bother with posters as they do not influence people. That is not the case. Posters are an essential part of electioneering. Failure to regulate this area has led to serious bouts of littering and has caused annoyance to members of the public.

This legislation is the last stand for corporate donations. The huge amount of controversy over the years has focused public attention on the link between big business and politics. It is incredible that the Minister has not taken cognisance of this even while various tribunals are in progress. He has not listened to the public anger.

I disagree with Deputy Power on this issue. Elections can be bought. Ray Burke had what he called "walking around money" where he could buy everyone drinks in the local GAA club. Every Christmas Charles Haughey could buy people hampers. How can any of us compete with activities of this kind which occur year in year out? Such people have bought elections. It must be stopped.

If there is to be a cap on election spending there should also be a cap on spending between elections. Otherwise wealthy people can spend money on impressive colour leaflets and secure a head start. The result is the absence of a level playing field, which is what we all want. We need a McKenna judgment for elections to ensure that those of us who have never received corporate donations can compete with those who do.

Fianna Fáil should reconsider this issue. Some party members agree with the Green Party on this. They believe it is damaging to the reputation of politics and politicians to continue the link with corporate donations. I am pleased to note that Fine Gael takes the same view since the election of Deputy Noonan as party leader. He saw sense in that he realised it was unacceptable and could not continue. A few years earlier my old sparring partner, Deputy Dukes, criticised me on the radio when he said I was against democratic principles and that every individual had the right to give money to political parties.

The new expenditure levels proposed in the Bill are a cause of concern. It is proposed that £25,000 may be spent in a four seat constituency. No Green Party candidate has that kind of money. Patricia McKenna, MEP, spent £25,000 to cover the entire Dublin region during the last European elections.

She must have spent most of it on posters.

No, that is a myth. When Ms McKenna was first elected to the European Parliament in 1994 people commented to me that the Green Party must have spent a fortune on posters. We had 600 posters to cover the entire Dublin area. It was a good poster but we only spent approximately £10,000 on that election.

I wish the Minister well and I have sent him a get well card. He needs to look at the issue of posters for Committee Stage. Perhaps he will accept a reasonable amendment from the Green Party.

There has been much discussion about corporate donations, the funding of political parties and the amount of money spent in constituencies during elections. However, the Bill deals with more than just those aspects and I wish to refer to many issues during my contribution.

There is much apathy among the public. People blame events at tribunals and individual politicians and political parties, but the issue must be addressed. An all-party commission should be established to address the underlying causes of the continual decline in voter turnout. Deputy Gormley referred to Pat O'Connor. A joke in Cork after the last election was that even Pat O'Connor was so apathetic he voted only three times. However, the difficulty in this area must be dealt with and an all-party committee should be established to discuss and address it.

One of the difficulties in the political system is that all the major parties are moving to the centre. There are no longer impassioned or inflamed debates such as those in the past and, thankfully, civil war politics are passing away. However, the result is that everybody is on the middle ground. Unless something is done, in the future political parties will be elected by a very small proportion of the electorate. This matter must be addressed.

There is also a difficulty with regard to the register of electors. Registers in some areas are in chaos and a centralised computer system must be introduced. Councils do not have the manpower to ensure that the register of electors is accurate. I have made the proposal many times at Cork County Council – it should apply to all local authorities and in all large urban areas – that if a corporation transfers a family from one home to another, it should at least make an effort to register the family's new address. This does not happen at present and I have repeatedly raised this problem in the House, at the Committee on the Environment and Local Government and meetings of the county council and Cork corporation. If the corporation moves a family to another house, there is no facility to register the new address.

I recognise that it is up to individuals to register, but the local authority in charge of the register of electors should encourage or facilitate them in transferring their votes. Solving this problem would help in addressing the evident difficulties with regard to local authority areas where many people are moved frequently and are not on the register. If one looks at voting patterns, solving this problem might ensure a greater voter turnout in such areas. There has been a dramatic decrease in voter turnout in my constituency of Cork North-Central in recent years for local and general elections and referenda. It might not assist greatly in an overall sense, but addressing this problem would be of use to some people and it should be considered.

The accuracy of the PR vote is one of the great imponderables of Irish politics. As somebody who was involved in a recount and lost by 14 votes, I have grave concerns about the accuracy of the single transferable vote system. As numerous surpluses are distributed and random samples are taken from the tops of bundles of 50 votes, undoubtedly there are inaccuracies. Statisticians and mathematicians have proved that beyond doubt. I would welcome electronic voting if it would ensure definite mathematical accuracy in this area.

In the count in which I was involved, there was not a full recount in the sense that all the ballot papers were not resorted and recounted through the pigeon hole system. There was only a recheck, but mathematicians and statisticians of great ability would argue that if all the ballot papers were fully recounted and resorted, inevitably the result would change, although the difference would be small. The initial transfers are simple and the surpluses are easily distributed. However, the distribution of surpluses after people are elected becomes inaccurate.

I hope an electronic voting system is put in place as soon as possible because it might stimulate interest among the public. People might be encouraged to go to polling stations, thereby increasing voter turnout. The system was brought to the House to demonstrate to Members how people would vote. Electronic voting is used in Holland and Germany and it is most successful. As soon as the system proves to be accurate and efficient – there should also be a back-up system – it should be introduced.

I welcome the use of photographs on ballot papers. There is a councillor in my ward called John Kelleher who is a few years older than I am. While canvassing in the local elections in 1999, a woman told me that she would give her first preference to my father and her second preference to me. I explained to her that he was not my father, but the use of photographs would prevent such confusion among the public. However, page three type photographs should not be allowed on ballot papers. Only head and shoulders shots should be used. The use of photographs in the European elections was successful. It helps people with reading disabilities or slight visual impairments because they can readily identify the candidates on the ballot paper for whom they wish to vote.

I am most disappointed by the attitude taken by some Opposition parties in accusing the Fianna Fáil Party and the Government of increasing spending limits so that they can buy the electorate. The Fianna Fáil Party will run three candidates in the five seat constituency of Cork North-Central – me, the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace and Deputy O'Flynn. The party can spend £90,000 on the three of us, but the important point is that not all of that money will be spent in Cork North-Central. More than likely, half that sum will go to headquarters, which leaves £45,000 between the three candidates. When this is divided by three, it equals £15,000 per candidate.

This sum is not huge in terms of helping me get my message across or the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, and Deputy O'Flynn getting across their messages in a five seat constituency with an electorate of 100,000 people. It does not equate to buying votes. If one breaks the figures down further, with a little help, the Fianna Fáil Party will win three seats and it will have the largest first preference share in the constituency. If one compares the spend to the percentage of votes, the Fianna Fáil Party will in effect spend less per vote than any other party in the constituency. The smaller parties will spend more per vote. The attitude adopted by some people with regard to the Government and Fianna Fáil increasing spending limits in order to buy votes is not valid. Fianna Fáil is the largest party, nominates the largest number of candidates and wins the most seats. Some of the smaller parties have pointed to the fact that the more candidates a party runs the more funding it receives, but every party is entitled to run as many candidates as it wishes. As the largest party, Fianna Fáil believes it should nominate as many candidates and win as many seats as possible. Fine Gael could run more candidates but that party has accepted it is in second place. In my constituency, for example, Fine Gael nominates only two candidates because the party does not want to be in Government.

I am concerned by the attitude adopted by some Members to donations. No amount of legislation will stop a person from being dishonest or dishonourable. However, we can address the problems we have experienced in the past and to which I alluded earlier. The Government addressed many of the questions being discussed in Dublin Castle even before the tribunal met. I am satisfied that a £5,000 donation to a political party or a £2,000 donation to an individual would not lead to corruption. The sum of £2,000 is very little to buy the vote of a Member of the Oireachtas. No Member of this House could be bought for £2,000. The Bill has achieved an excellent balance. Spending in a five seat constituency is to be increased to £30,000, in a four seat constituency to £25,000 and in a three seat constituency to £20,000. These are fair amounts of money for a candidate to spend to get his or her message across to the electorate.

I do not know how the problems of the electoral register can be addressed in the long-term. If local authorities do not have the resources to formulate and maintain the electoral register perhaps the task could be transferred to An Post. In rural Ireland postmen visit all houses and are aware of who moves into and out of houses. Local authority personnel do not have this familiarity with the residents of a locality. This problem must be addressed.

Voters may place their names on the supplementary register of electors up to 14 days before an election. This is welcome but a better system is required. When a person reaches 18 years of age, he or she should be able to submit a form and a computerised system should ensure he or she may vote at the next election. The system is not working as efficiently as it should.

At the last general election several people in Cork North-Central were struck off the electoral register for no reason. Whole families of seven and eight people went to their polling stations and found they could not vote. That is unacceptable. An administrative or computer error should not disenfranchise voters.

The Referendum Commission should be abolished. It is an insult to the electorate. Can people not make up their own minds? The Referendum Commission appears to say they cannot. The commission adjudicates on the arguments for and against a proposal and places advertisements in the newspapers setting out the arguments on both sides. This is a gross insult to the people. We are telling them they cannot make up their minds about the issues to be decided on. Can the various groups who support and oppose the change not be given funds, be allowed to put forward their arguments and the public allowed to decide who is right and wrong? The Referendum Commission has made nonsense of serious political debate. The McKenna judgment did not require the establishment of the Referendum Commission. It could be abolished immediately.

Deputy Gormley also referred to personation at elections. When elections are called during the summer large numbers of polling cards are posted to students and are left lying in vacant accommodation. It is very easy for someone to collect several polling cards and use them for personation purposes. This problem must be addressed. Deputy Gormley suggested requiring voters to produce identification. Perhaps we should examine that proposal. In general elections hundreds of votes are cast by personators, particularly in urban areas. We have all heard the anecdotes of, for example, Pat O'Connor, Pat O'Connor and Pat O'Connor. Can the Minister forward to me information regarding trials of electronic voting? I am interested in this question for the reasons I have outlined regarding the vagaries of the single transferable vote.

The legislation is very welcome. I am disappointed by the response it received from one side of the House and by the accusations of vote buying. Every Member has a vested interest in getting this Bill right and in ensuring the electoral system works fairly for everybody. My party is gaining no more than any other from these measures. In the next general election, Fianna Fáil will spend less per vote than any other party because of legislation we have introduced. We are so generous we are hurting ourselves more than anyone else.

Deputy Gormley mentioned posters. We must have some razzmatazz and fanfare at election times. If we do not people will not vote. Posters should be permitted anywhere in a constituency provided they do not pose a threat to safety or an inconvenience to traffic. There is provision for prosecution if posters are not removed within a certain number of days of polling. Posters are an integral part of electioneering.

We have enough regulations and stipulations with regard to campaigning and canvassing outside polling stations. In the past these activities contributed to a high turn-out.

When Johnny came home from work in the evening he saw a group of people outside a polling station with posters everywhere and decided to go home and have his tea and then go to vote. Nowadays one might pass a polling station without even knowing it. This is an issue we should look at.

In general I welcome the Bill. I would more than welcome the Opposition's taking heed of what I said with regard to the spending limits and the banning of donations and accepting that this is very positive legislation.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very interesting Bill which brings forward some radical proposals and important changes to the electoral system, including electronic voting for elections. It is a pity it does not deal effectively with the central malaise affecting politics, given that it has other good features. It is a shame that it has been spoiled by the lack of courage and direction on the issue of tackling corporate donations.

The political context in which this Bill is being discussed is one in which politics is in crisis, where voter turnout is very low and there is huge disillusionment with politics. That is very disappointing for almost everyone in this House. It is very sad for us to be in a profession going through such a crisis and being devalued in so many ways. Everyone here will agree that we are all subject to negative comments about politics and that politics has been demeaned in recent years. The notion of people being motivated towards public service has got, and still is getting, an extremely bad press. It is evident in the turnout for the Nice treaty referendum and for general elections that people are disillusioned and we have to ask why. This crisis is not just affecting Ireland; it affects every country to different degrees.

One of the reasons is the type of information that is coming from the tribunals. We had very informal systems of funding for political parties and very informal systems regarding ethics and behaviour. I am delighted, as are most people in the House, to see more formalised systems put into place. It is a protection for everyone. There was a lot of resistance to it some years ago when they were originally brought in by the coalition Government. Every day it appears clearer that it was right to formalise the rules about how political parties operated and how contributions were given. This Bill is another effort in that direction and as such plays an important part in trying to restore faith in the democratic system and in political parties.

It is a pity that the central issue in regard to corporate donations was not tackled in this Bill and, ironically, that the limits are increased again. It depends on where one is coming from whether one thinks that the limits make a difference. It gets us back on the circuit of fund-raising again, puts more pressure on party members to be involved in fund-raising and on constituencies to raise more money. The original Act in 1997 set limits at £14,000, £17,000 and £20,000 per candidate in three, four and five seat constituencies respectively. This Bill proposes to increase these limits to £20,000, £25,000 and £30,000 before the original limits have been tested in a general election.

Deputy Kelleher said that £90,000 for a three-seat would be reduced to £45,000 when a proportion had been given to headquarters, leaving only £15,000 for each candidate. The sum of £45,000 is a large amount to have to raise in a constituency. It is a great deal of money by any standard, especially if one considers the sums with which people have won elections. Deputy Gormley gave an indication of what the Green Party has spent in recent years.

Who sets the limits and the boundaries? The sum of £90,000 is a lot of money to have available to a constituency where three candidates are running. It is beside the point that half of the money goes back to headquarters as it is the choice of headquarters to take back that money, as Deputy Kelleher pointed out in his example. That money is still going into the election process. The figure is unnecessarily high and puts pressure on Deputies, party members and the constituency to spend more. Why not try the earlier limits in the Bill that was originally published, evaluate how that goes and then reconsider if necessary?

The question of who this benefits has to be asked. I am not into conspiracy theories about this but it obviously benefits people who have access to more money. Speaking as a woman parliamentarian, world-wide research regarding women and politics has shown that one of the key barriers has been access to resources. I have just reviewed some research that has been done on the Irish Parliament. When one looks at barriers to participation and what supports women parliamentarians had in terms of getting elected, party and family support is very important, but business associates are almost irrelevant for them in terms of access to the political system, while it is rated quite highly by male parliamentarians. Expecting us to have more resources in each constituency is going to increase the barriers against women who want to access Parliament. This is a well researched and well proven angle and it is important to give it some thought.

Increasing the limits favours those who have access to raising more money. It is not wise as it makes it harder for people who have been outside the political system to get involved in politics. It will be hard for refugees, marginalised groups and those with less resources to get involved in mainstream politics. Politics has been devalued because it is still seen as an elite area that is hard to break into, and that is the reality for many. Increasing the limits fails to deal with that issue and fundamentally fails to deal with the perception and reality that the links between business and politics have created problems for the political system. This is apparent from what we hear coming from the tribunals.

We would do well to follow the advice of the Fine Gael leader, Deputy Michael Noonan, who stated:

There has been a cancer in the body politic, which the tribunals have diagnosed and which we must remove. Trust has been lost between politicians and people. This is due to the widespread belief that contributions from the corporate sector influenced policy in favour of the interests of those who contribute and to the detriment of the interests of the wider public.

That is why he took the decision, on becoming Fine Gael leader, to ban corporate donations and that is what should have been done in this Bill.

Despite some of the very good changes in this Bill, it fundamentally fails to deal with what has been a cancer in the Irish body politic. It fails to address the central issue and in so far as it attempts to deal with it, it makes the situation worse by expecting everybody to have to raise and spend more money to get elected. That will favour certain groups and individuals more than others and it is wrong to do so. It is particularly wrong now given the political context in which we are all operating. Deputy Gormley made an interesting point about how different local authorities administer the electoral register. I ask the Minister to try for some standard formula to be used in the electronic disc. It has taken a long time for Dublin Corporation to develop a format that is more user friendly and we should look at how it could be standardised throughout the country.

The move to an electronic voting system is welcome. I note from reading the Bill and the Minister's speech that it is very unclear when it will be introduced. We are introducing enabling legislation but there seems to be a huge amount of uncertainty as to when it will happen. Where is the pilot project? There will be great fun when the pilot project happens in the first constituency. Perhaps the Minister could give more detailed information in his concluding speech. It is certainly a step in the right direction. It is important to avoid the problems that were encountered in Florida where out of date machinery was used and total chaos ensued. This system has been used effectively elsewhere and is obviously the right direction to take.

A number of electors told me they found the three separate ballot papers in the recent referenda quite confusing. The information at the top of the ballot papers was not explicit enough, referring only to the proposed amendments. We must examine our methods of informing the public about elections and about referenda. The recent referenda were confusing.

We have to make people more interested in the democratic process and we have not even begun. We are hardly addressing it in the schools. Yet, when young people come in to see how the Dáil operates, it does excite their interest and they often link into politics because of those visits. The issue of making people more interested and involved in politics has to be addressed. It has been dealt with in other countries. Basic information needs to be disseminated especially to young people when they reach voting age.

I am a total advocate of electronic voting. The amount of time wasted under the present system of Oireachtas voting is ridiculous. I do not accept any of the arguments against it, they belong to another era. We should move to electronic both in this House and for any elections. We can deal with any attendant problems as best we can.

A number of speakers mentioned the lack of atmosphere around polling stations now that posters and canvassing are not allowed. I agree and I welcome the changes proposed in the Bill. It is important to identify the location of polling stations very clearly. Many people ring us at election time asking for directions. An effort should be made to identify polling stations, to use local radio advertisements. We must inject the democratic process with a bit more urgency. We have paid the price with the Nice vote for failing to do that effectively.

There are huge problems with the Referendum Commission and the balance that it is required to give. It seems to neutralise the issues. I do not think that is the way politics works. The McKenna judgment needs to be revisited. The Referendum Commission did not do its job badly. It did what was asked of it. The implications of the McKenna judgment in terms of democracy and in terms of getting a message across makes its job almost impossible. Things are not always balanced in life. It has been at times almost farcical to see the effect of achieving a balance which is not naturally there. The public can judge for themselves; they do not need that sort of 50-50 weighting to make up their minds.

We must address the important issues of low voter turnout. The difficulties people encounter in getting registered if they move from one area to another have been dealt with in the Bill. That is very important. Many people who genuinely wanted to vote found themselves excluded when they moved house and were not able to go on the supplementary list. That form of disenfranchisement is unnecessary and it is good to see that this has been dealt with in the Bill.

I welcome the attempt to deal with disability issues. Better access will be afforded to those with disabilities, those who are visually impaired or have literacy problems. If a strong disability Bill were enacted it would have implications for how we give access to electors who are disabled.

This Bill formalises an approach to the register of electors, to voting, to political donations, even though it does not deal properly with that issue. The other proposals, however, are all very necessary changes and will be generally helpful. I hope they will engage people more effectively in the democratic process.

The Bill's provisions deal with a number of exclusions. People were unsure about those issues. The questions of accommodation for those working on campaigns and minor expenditure need more explanation. I do not think the meaning of section 2(g) is absolutely clear. It sounds very simple but I ask the Minister to explain that again. How many items under £100 in value are allowed? This is the sort of issue that can get very contentious post-election or indeed in the middle of an election, even when there are going to be quite high limits. Very clear guidelines will be required. The Minister has said that he does not wish to see Members of this House under investigation by the commission after the next election for moderate expenditure over the limits. The details in this Bill will need to be clear.

These changes are important. It is surprising it has taken so long to introduce some of them. They are not the full story on voter turn-out. We have a great deal more work to do to reinvigorate politics and make it meaningful and trustworthy again. It is unfortunate that the key issue of corporate donations has not been dealt with and that the limits have been increased again but I welcome the other provisions of the Bill.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this important legislation. Despite the fact that we are sitting on a Friday the number of Members offering to speak is significant. Clearly the provisions of the Bill have implications for all of us including those aspiring to become Members.

The experience from recent elections and referenda generally underlines that the political system and its practitioners need to address more urgently than most other matters, the perceived apathy with regard to the political system. Despite what may happen from time to time, there is no doubt we have a reasonable democratic system here. There is the opportunity for the 78,661 people on the register of electors in County Louth and a similar number in Cavan-Monaghan, Dublin-West etc. on election day, to vote for their public representatives for the subsequent three, four or five years. That is a significant power in collective terms for the electorate in each of the 41 constituencies. It is worrying despite that collective power that apathy appears to have become endemic among some people. Some say the political system does not matter and that those who are selected and elected on election day are not all that relevant to the continuation of the democratic process. Plenty of reasons can be advanced as to why that should be the case. There is no doubt that recent societal changes are a contributory factor. People are moving into new housing estates and inevitably community integration takes time. Perhaps those moving into to a new area or constituency do not empathise with the candidates on the ballot paper. It may be that they come from a background where people have a low level of respect for politics and politicians generally. The influence of the media in projecting politicians and the political system in a negative vein impacts on people's attitudes at election time. Perhaps political parties do not have an adequate number of campaigners to ensure the doors are rapped, posters are put up, that those who do not have transport on election day can get to vote. There is no single reason for the apathy but it is worrying and disturbing. We have the advantage of being able to draw on the experiences from other democracies. However, it appears they have similar problems and that they have not as yet found a solution to the difficulty.

Having listened to a number of speakers, the issue of political funding was inevitably mentioned. We all agree that to run political parties costs money, whether it is the administration of the party, an adequate research unit or keeping the countrywide organisation in a reasonable shape. There is a belief that all political parties should be able to run on fresh air. Money is needed to run them and to keep them going. We complain here on a regular basis about the lack of adequate back up and research. We need more personnel to do the work that, perhaps, we should do ourselves if we were not engaged in other matters, such as looking after the day to day constituency problems. One way or the other it takes money to run the organisation. The question is should the taxpayer pay or should it be a combination of the taxpayer paying and voluntary contributions? I am not sure the taxpayer would be pleased to foot the bill 100% for all the financial needs of the political parties.

There may well be people in the community who like to contribute to the support of democracy. I am not talking about those who wish to contribute large sums of money, perhaps to influence individuals to do certain things in the political system. We have learned a lesson from what has happened in the past and that lesson is being implemented.

On the question of financial support for political parties, the pressure group syndrome and its role and significance in influencing decisions and opinions is under estimated. Suppose for commercial reasons I am not a political practitioner and my family and I are in the business of supplying equipment that would be in demand provided there were particular policy changes in, for example, the environmental area. I decide to set up a pressure group because it is the thing to do and to become involved in a particular environmental issue. There is no argument against moving towards wind power, harnessing wave power, developing hydro generated power to a greater extent, harnessing our rivers and, perhaps, sup plying solar panels to somebody who wishes to put new solar panels on the roof of a new dwelling. Do we think for a moment that if I set up groups to advocate a move in those directions that eventually commercial benefit will accrue to somebody who is supplying those areas? At that stage I am completely outside the political system. Yet, if I have the organisational ability to harness a pressure group to go down a particular road and to advocate developments in these areas its significance within an economy is seriously under estimated. Because the public focus is on the perceived shortcoming of politicians and the system these pressure groups, lobbyists etc. get away scot free.

Coming from a constituency which has a fairly good record of prudence in the matter of spending at election time it never ceases to amaze me that when I check with the local newspaper about the advertising rates for an election in three weeks time, inevitably, it is not possible to talk to the editor or the person in charge of marketing affairs to find out how much it will cost to place an advertisement for my political party. It is too late to talk about that cost when a month has passed and I need to foot the bill for that charge. Any local newspaper, particularly in a large town, has significant negotiating power with political parties that is seriously underestimated.

If for four or five months before an election a particular newspaper editor favoured Seamus Kirk over the other candidates in the Louth constituency and decided to run my photograph about four or five times each week, without any attached cost to me personally, can we say that does not influence the electors when they come to vote? There is no cost to me because that advertising is being given for free over a period of four or five months. Is that a distortion of the electoral system in my constituency, or that of Deputies Currie or Roche? Of course it is. Are we catering for it in this or any legislation we have put through the House? We are not. We will never develop a system where we can ensure there will not be any distortions.

A local newspaper, which circulates on a Tuesday evening before the election on Thursday, could decide to put on the front page: "Vote number one for Seamus Kirk. He is best for this area. He has represented us for ten years and he has done well". What comeback would the other candidates in that constituency have in the two days left to them before polling day? They have local radio, which may have very limited influence in such circumstances.

We want a clear, fair and transparent electoral system, but can we cater in law for the eventualities I have just outlined? We cannot, unless we prohibit local newspapers and local radio from participating in the election. I have long held the view that the only way is to inject as much competition into it as possible.

I listened to Deputy John Gormley speak about the issue of postering. I am sure that both you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and Deputy Cur rie are familiar with County Louth. We have two national primary roads running through the constituency. They are obvious locations to place posters. If people are travelling from their town or village, they inevitably converge on the national primary roads. At the last European elections, Fianna Fáil had quite a few posters on both routes on which there is very heavy traffic. Those taking down the posters need to get up early before traffic builds up. I rolled out of bed at 4 a.m. on two successive days after polling day and with some help got around to take down the posters. We congratulated ourselves on having done our bit for the environment and the constituency. If any odd posters were not down, we were on the telephone asking to take them down as quickly as possible. Imagine my disappointment when I received a telephone call from Fianna Fáil headquarters saying that it had received a fine because a poster was found in some obscure location in the constituency a week or ten days after polling day. Part of the problem with the apathy in the political electoral system is that if we do not have an atmosphere, created by the posters, in the lead up to polling day, how do we expect to motivate or generate interest among the electorate?

Deputy Currie is across the Chamber. Could he imagine going to the Ulster final in Clones in three weeks time, coming from Cookstown, Coalisland, Ballygawley or Clonoe and seeing no flags on the road? How could he expect the level of interest that is part and parcel of participating in sport to be there? The same principle applies to election day and the electoral system.

We want the system to be automatic and perfect. Most of us were disappointed with the result in the recent referendum on the Nice Treaty. There is a feeling, for good or evil, that we are over-regulated, whether it be special areas of conservation or the mundane regulations that affect the small farmers on the back of the Cooley Mountains. The perception is that we are dominating the small person in society to far greater an extent.

As one who is a great advocate of the tidy towns movement in my constituency, I want to see a clean environment. I do not want to see the countryside littered with posters, but surely they are part and parcel of an election campaign. The activists in all political parties are under an obligation to get them down as best they can in a reasonable time. I cannot see the shortcoming in this. However the local authority feels under pressure because of a perceived public demand to force the political parties to get the posters down and feel obliged to implement the regulations to the letter of the law. This is part of the problem in running political parties generally; reason and common sense go out the window.

I am sorry if I have gone off slightly on a tangent, but it is all relevant. The problems of running a political party in a Dublin constituency or one down in the country are different. The availability of postering personnel, the local radio net work and local newspapers are the factors that make the difference.

The introduction of electronic voting will clearly be of benefit. We proudly say that we have the best educated population in Europe. We do not have anything to fear from the introduction of electronic voting. There may be elderly people but even they should not have any difficulty with it.

I have long held the view that the accuracy of the register of electors is down to one thing, that is, the commitment and desire of the public official given the job to go out and check it. A person in my constituency who had this responsibility for many years was always worried if a name was missing from the register. He had a huge personal commitment to ensuring that the register of electors in his designated area was accurate and up to date. Perhaps others are not as diligent. Perhaps political parties do not take the time to check the draft register when it comes out to ensure it is accurate and up to date and that nobody is wrongly omitted or included. We have the revision court system. There are huge tracts of new population areas where many people are not immediately familiar with the personalities. The Garda Síochána, who know the people locally, must be involved in the revision of the register of electors. They have a major role to play.

It will be interesting to see if Deputy Kirk gets wide coverage in his local papers for the speech which he has just delivered, perhaps accompanied by several photographs. He referred to the fact that Deputies have been keen to participate in this debate which is, unusually, taking place on a Friday afternoon. Very few subjects excite the interest of politicians more than electoral law and matters relating to elections. It may even excite more interest than our own remuneration.

Of course, we have a vested interest in getting this legislation right. That is in all our interests. In our attitude to these matters, we are all coloured by our own history and our own experience. In my case, my attitude is coloured by 25 years in northern politics and 12 years in politics here. There are both similarities and differences in being a political practitioner north of the Border and being one here in the South. In relation to electoral law and practices, there are some considerable differences. We do not have the tribal situation here which is so evident in the North. It is not so easy here to identify political allegiance as it is north of the Border.

Paramilitary organisations do not, as far as I am aware, exercise the same influence in this jurisdiction as they do in the North and, of course, the level of electoral abuse in Northern Ireland is greater than it is here. That is not to say it does not exist here. Deputy Gormley referred to electoral abuse. Deputy Kelleher said he believed hundreds of votes were personated in urban areas in Cork and I have to believe him. I have my own experience of personation. As I travelled around the polling stations during one election, a Hiace van stopped outside one polling station and about nine men got out.

Was it a white Hiace van?

Indeed it was. One of the men inquired from me if this was the place where he voted and he named a particular candidate. Shortly afterwards, as I visited another polling station, the same van pulled in and the same crowd of men got out. This time, I intervened to ensure that they did not vote again. Of course, I have no idea how many times they had already voted. However, it is not the same here as in the North. Perhaps, in considering our rules and regulations, we should bear in mind the advent of Sinn Féin, allied to a paramilitary organisation, becoming more involved than they have been for a long time in the politics and elections of this State. Maybe we need to look at our rules and our protections in that context. We are talking of a disciplined organisation. As one leading Sinn Féin member in West Tyrone said on a television programme during the recent election, their workers "were organised with military precision". We know what that means. We rely very largely on volunteers to fight our elections but they have a different sort of "volunteer". There are those who are under discipline and those, such as ours, who can tell us to get lost if they do not wish to do what we ask them. We have to be nice to our volunteers. The other form of volunteers have expertise and facilities available to them which we do not have, nor do we wish to have.

In elections in the North, a great number of people have been caught with forged identification. Those forgeries are extremely difficult to detect. They are done by people who are members of organisations who know how to do these things with great skill and practice. I think we have to be careful in that regard. We should not fool ourselves that some of those things that happened in Northern Ireland will not happen here. Let us try to ensure, to the extent that we can in this and other legislation, that we protect democracy. By concentrating on certain constituencies and pouring personnel and money into those constituencies – I have in mind particularly working class areas where polling might be predictably low, or new housing estates where people may not know their next door neighbour – the system is wide open to abuse. Our democratic system can be undermined. It is our job as legislators in this Parliament to do everything we can to stop that abuse and to protect the democratic system.

Identification is almost useless unless it is accompanied by a photograph. If necessary, there should be an identity card, with a photograph, which has to be produced at polling stations. After 12 years fighting elections here, I am still not quite sure who has responsibility for detecting personation because it has not imposed itself on me to the same extent as it has in the North. Who can stop personation at a polling station? The people involved include the presiding officer, the polling clerks, the anti-personation people and the gardaí. Must the personation officers bring a challenge? I will return to this subject at the first available opportunity.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 4 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 June 2001.
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