I move amendment No. 1:
In page 5, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following:
"1.–No provision of this Act relating to changes in spending limits for a general election shall have effect in relation to the general election held next following the passing of this Act.".
We need to remind ourselves where this Bill came from. This Bill first appeared on the legislative programme when the House returned after last summer's recess. Suddenly, on the list of legislation promised from the Department of the Environment and Local Government, was a Bill called the Electoral (Amendment) Bill.
I questioned the Taoiseach on a number of occasions about the purpose of this Bill. I was told innocently that it was a Bill to put candidates' photographs on ballot papers, to introduce electronic voting at elections, and a number of other similar innocuous changes to the electoral laws. I pursued the matter and asked for a briefing. I was given a briefing which amounted to a page and a half which repeated something similar but made no reference at all to what was going to be the main purpose of this legislation – to increase the amount of money Fianna Fáil could spend in a general election.
We did not discover that this was the purpose of the legislation until it was published just before Christmas. Contained in the miscellaneous section of the Bill was the provision that the maximum spending limit per candidate at an election was to be increased by about 50%. The original levels were set in 1997 and were £14,000 for a three-seat constituency, £17,000 for a four-seat constituency and £20,000 for a five-seat constituency. They were now to be increased to £20,000, £25,000 and £30,000, respectively. The only party which is going to benefit from this is the party that has raised the money, and that is Fianna Fáil. I know that in responses to criticisms I have made previously about this Bill, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government has responded by saying that everybody can spend the same amount. That is nonsense. You cannot spend it unless you have it.
It is quite clear that what has been happening over the last number of years is that Fianna Fáil has continued in its traditional way of raising money from the corporate sector. It now has a big war chest and it wants to raise the limit of the amount that can be spent in a general election. I have tabled amendments elsewhere on this Report Stage which are seeking to reverse that and seeking to confine the spending limits to the amount that was originally intended in the 1997 Bill.
The purpose of the 1997 Act was to put into place a regime whereby candidates and political parties would be able to contest elections on a fair and relatively equitable basis. We look at other countries and send parliamentary observers to look at their elections on the basis that we want fair and free elections in other countries. The fairness of an election is also determined by the amount that can be spent by candidates at that election. If one candidate or one group of candidates can spend large amounts of money, they are in an advantaged position over those candidates who cannot do so.
One of the reasons the Labour Party has traditionally remained as the third political party and the third force in Irish politics is that throughout the history of the State it has had to contest elections at an unfair disadvantage as against parties such as Fianna Fáil which were funded by corporate funding and had larger war chests. That is what this Bill is about.
What makes it worse is that the Bill proposes that these new spending limits are to come into operation at the next election. That places parties at an additional disadvantage because everybody else, apart from the parties in Government, was of the belief that the next general election would be contested on the basis of the limits set in 1997. It is an open secret that parties and candidates, in anticipation of a general election, had been making preliminary preparations for an elections for some time. Nobody in the House or outside was aware of an intention on the part of the Government to raise the limits until the Bill was published last Christmas. However, the Government was aware of it. We know now, because Magill magazine published documents or extracts from documents it had received under the Freedom of Information Act, that as far back as February 2000 the Minister for the Environment gave an instruction to his officials to include this provision in the Bill. If that instruction was given in February 2000 it is fair to assume it was being hatched for some time. The parties in Government, or at least Fianna Fáil, had been aware for the past 18 months that it was the intention to raise the spending limits for a general election. It was hatched and put together but the Bill did not appear until December 2000. The very minimum the House should do is ensure the new limits do not apply at the next general election. If they are to apply at the next general election there will be a double disadvantage for the Opposition. There is a disadvantage in terms of spending capacity for those of us in parties who do not have the capacity to raise large wads of money. That applies also to Independent candidates. There is a disadvantage because we are being asked to contest the next election on the basis of rules which were known to the Government side for 18 months but which were not known to anybody else until the Bill was published. That disadvantage has practical implications because parties or candidates who were making preliminary preparations for an election and who were making arrangements about the kind of posters and literature they might, design work etc. made those plans on the assumption that the spending limits would be as set out in the 1997 legislation. There could be an election before the House resumes. The limits are being changed in the last lap before a general election but they should not apply to the next general election. It is not unusual to put a stay on the implementation of some provisions of legislation. Ministers use statutory instruments to commence certain sections or not to commence certain sections of legislation.
If the Government was of the view that the limits were too low, I ask the Minister to accept the amendment and let us see how we fare at the next election. If the purpose of the legislation was as I suspect, to confer an advantage on Fianna Fail at the next election then the Minister of State, who has been a critic and an opponent of Fianna Fáil during much of his political career, will turn down this amendment. I look forward to a favourable reply.
