I move amendment No. 2:
In page 6, before section 3, but in Part 1 of the Bill, to insert the following new section:
"3. A political party, the President, a member of either House of the Oireachtas, of the European Parliament, of a local authority or of Údarás na Gaeltachta, or a candidate for any of the said offices, shall not directly or indirectly accept a donation for political (including electoral) purposes from any person (including a body corporate) other than a Dáil elector.".
The Minister has explained the grouping of his amendments and I must comment on the manner in which we are dealing with Committee Stage and the amendments. It is appropriate to do so in the context of amendments Nos. 2 and 3 as they refer to the issue of political donations.
The Minister referred to Part 4 of the Bill and particularly to the issue of new limits on political donations. That is at the heart of this legislation. It is not right for us to split Committee Stage of the Bill as we are doing. My complaint is not about time factors, it is that we do not have the full list of what are substantial amendments on a major section of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 would probably be grouped with amendments in Part 4 of the Bill if we had those amendments. We are to have a debate now on political donations, but we will have to return to the same matter after the Government has published its amendments.
This is not the right way to deal with legislation. We should see the Bill as a whole and debate it in that fashion. A Committee Stage with a large number of amendments can lead to a fractured debate. Members on this side of the House are blind to the views of the Government on this central issue. We cannot have a proper, comprehensive debate on this issue without reference to the thinking of the Government.
There has been agreement on approaching Committee Stage in this way but I have reservations about it. I do not think this is the right way to proceed. However, at this stage, I will confine my remarks to the issue of political donations and to the amendment which the Labour Senators have tabled.
The whole issue of corporate donations to political parties, and to individuals in parties, is one which currently dominates political discourse. I do not have to point out that it has done so for the past couple of years. Revelations have come to us by way of the tribunals. This week further revelations point out to us as politicians what we clearly know, that the issue of corporate donations to individuals and political parties must be dealt with. Unresolved, the issue hangs like a black cloud over politics. It continues to undermine public confidence in politics and politicians.
The Labour Party, having received its strongest ever mandate, entered government in 1992 and brought with it a programme of reform. The programme was supported by our partners in Government, Fianna Fáil and in the latter part of that Administration by Fine Gael and Democratic Left. The elements of the programme sought to reform Irish politics and to bring about a degree of modernisation. It also sought to bring to the fore the very important issue of the separation of business and politics. Thus, the Ethics in Public Office Act, 1995, was enacted, despite much resistance. I was working as a political adviser at the time and I remember that some individuals, now no longer Members of the Oireachtas, had particular difficulty with the idea of the public having access to and knowledge of a politician's business affairs. To some extent, and although thinking has changed considerably on this matter, one could understand where that came from. The thinking was that politicians could separate their business and political lives and that the public could see that separation. That was based on a high degree of trust, not only in the individual but also in the party they represented and that party's other members. As we know, that trust is broken. It has been blown apart by the activities of a small number of politicians.
It is well established that the need to separate business and politics is of paramount importance. It has been done in other democracies and it is being done here. We are still going through the process, the first element of which was the Ethics in Public Office Act, 1995. Other elements have been electoral Acts, agreed by all parties in previous Administrations. It has led to not only the register of Members' interests but also to a declaration of spending at elections and, for the first time, a limit on the amount which can be spent in general or by-elections. We have come to the point of accepting that in principle. The issue of corporate donations to political parties remains to be dealt with.
I have referred to the fact that trust has been broken. There is no need to recite the long list of reasons that is the case. The acceptance of donations by a small number of politicians and the perception in the public mind that that was inevitably and potentially linked to decisions made by them must be tackled. I will comment no further on that because I believe it is quite rightly in the realm of the tribunals. The tribunals have asked the media not to make judgments before they have fully reported and we should also adhere to that. In the public mind there have been occasions in political life where money bought influence. As well as taking that into account we must also act on it.
In the 1997 general election, when I stood for the first time as a Labour Party candidate, I proposed that the party should support a complete ban on political donations and advocate the idea of State funding for political parties, that we should support the entire separation of business and politics. At that time the idea was considered to be radical and unlikely to gain public support. Since then the public, and most members of political parties, have gradually and inevitably come around to the view that it is necessary to end the practice of corporate donations and address the issue of State funding for parties. While there is a suggestion that a donation made to a candidate, politician or party could be seen to have bought influence, public trust cannot be restored.
We must go as far as we can to ensure that there is a full separation of business and politics. The only way to do that is to end the practice of corporate donations, to severely limit the practice of personal donations and to have full transparency and accountability on spending by parties and candidates. In addition, the limits on election time spending should be relatively low. The Labour Party is anxious that this legislation specifically incorporates our views on this issue. This amendment is the first of several on political donations which we shall table.
This debate is being held, in effect, in a vacuum. We do not know the Government's thinking on this. Presumably the Minister will tell me that he will publish amendments next week. I have no way of responding to that and therefore we cannot have the full Committee Stage debate – unless, that is, the Minister gives us an indication today what Government thinking is on this matter. If he does, I will very much welcome it. We cannot move forward without a full view of the Government's thinking.
