Political funding reform would send signal that nod and wink culture is being challenged
GOD KNOWS what will have happened by time this column is printed. We have just watched five senior Fianna Fáil politicians (yes, I include Mary Harney, subsumed body and soul back into FF as her final political act) colluding with Brian Cowen in possibly the most misjudged political stroke ever attempted. Anything is now possible in this bizarre spectacle we used to call Irish politics.
What were they all thinking? Did none of the premature retirees timidly raise a hand and say to Cowen that all of them resigning together and lining up replacements for seven weeks was possibly his worst idea ever? Oh, it is long past time for this Government to go. Except for a few tiny details, the kind of detail that gets lost at times of tragicomedy like this. Our country still has to implement a four-year plan, thousands are emigrating, and vital pieces of legislation are threatened.
We have been talking about ending corporate donations for about 20 years. Legislation was a hair’s breadth from being passed. And unlike some other issues, we know that Fine Gael will not act on this if it is not concluded by this Government. Phil Hogan made that clear at the last MacGill Summer School. Even though Lucinda Creighton called for an end to corporate donations, both he and Enda Kenny have no problem with them. Not surprising, given where the corporate donations and, presumably, personal donations of the powerful are going right now. No one is suggesting that Enda Kenny is in any way corrupt, but money follows even the scent of power, and Ireland is too small and incestuous for that to be in any way healthy.
This was a brief moment when proper regulation could have been enforced. It would have suited Fianna Fáil to support greater regulation, because it would dry up a source of income for Fine Gael and affect Fianna Fáil very little. And it has been a core value of the Greens for a very long time.
Those who oppose further regulation of corporate donations always insist that there is a high enough level of regulation as it is. However, the Standards in Public Office Commission Report for 2009 makes it clear that there are still major problems.
The report says that “the provisions aimed at ensuring transparency and openness in relation to disclosure of donations and expenditure at elections remain ineffective”. While commending some “strong features” of the current system of regulation, it is critical of the fact that “there is no requirement under the Electoral Acts for political parties to keep proper books and accounts, to specify all donations received in these accounts or to make the accounts public”.
This is a crucial aspect of any proposed Bill on political funding. Until the books are properly kept, many aspects of political funding will remain opaque. For example, donations under €5,078.95 to political parties and €634.87 to individual members need not be disclosed. Both parties and donors are free, therefore, to make donations of, say, one cent under the threshold.
Another obvious problem concerns anonymous donations, which only have to be disclosed if they are more than €126.97. In theory, anyone could be merrily firing anonymous donations of €126.96 at political parties as often as he or she liked. Until proper accounts are kept, published and subjected to rigorous scrutiny, there will be no clear sense of how parties are financed. Both Transparency International and Greco (Council of Europe Groups of States Against Corruption) have insisted that publication of accounts is crucial.
There are other problems, including one of particular relevance at the moment. While there are limits on campaign spending, they apply only from the date the election is announced. Any money spent by parties until now will not have to be accounted for.
While Bertie Ahern’s penchant for proclaiming that the right to make political donations was akin to a basic human right like food or shelter may have been a tad exaggerated, there may be constitutional problems with banning donations entirely.
However, if the Greens do not succeed in making some progress in reforming this area, it will be a huge loss.
Of course it is not the only area in need of reform. When the High Court recently vindicated Ivor Callely’s claim that the investigation of his expenses by a Seanad committee violated natural justice, it only served to highlight the need to reform the system which governs politicians’ expenses.
Tom Delay, former Republican house majority leader and once one of the most powerful politicians in the US, will spend three years in jail for attempting illegally to move $190,000 in corporate donations to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature in the 2002 elections.
I am not a major fan of prison for non-violent crime, but it is hard to imagine something similar happening in Ireland.
It is also often said that a ban on corporate donations would mean that only the wealthy could afford to be in politics. Yet if all these donations are as innocent and devoid of implications as political parties insist, why would anyone object to contributing under conditions of full disclosure? It may seem a boring, pedantic point to be banging on about when you could be watching a once powerful party set fire to its underwear while still wearing it, and then attempt to douse the flames with petrol, but it remains a vital issue.
One of the big problems in Irish politics is that certain privileged people have always had access to power in a deeply unhealthy way. Stiff regulation of political funding would send a signal that the culture of nods and winks is being challenged.
Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. We have had enough farces and fiascos in recent times to last a lifetime. Please don’t let a valuable opportunity for reform fade away.