Corporate funding ban not possible, says Ahern

The Taoiseach defended his assertion that a ban on the corporate funding of political parties would be unconstitutional.

Mr Ahern was replying to the Labour deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, who challenged him to publish the legal advice he had received.

"As the deputy is aware," Mr Ahern added, "the advice of the Attorney General is not published. However, the interpretation he gave is the same as the interpretation made by a number of constitutional lawyers in the past week."

Mr Howlin insisted that there were many precedents for publishing advice given to a government by the Attorney General. "It would be of great help to all of us in addressing a very difficult issue if the advice the Taoiseach quoted was put into the public domain."

Mr Ahern said the Attorney General had attended a meeting with the party leaders and given the advice to them. Mr Howlin replied that no written advice had been given.

Earlier, Mr Howlin said it was clear there was a job to be done to restore confidence in the House. "Some of the attitudes from the Government benches are doing nothing to help."

Mr Ahern said the debate on the Bill dealing with corruption had been tentatively fixed for June 22nd. He wanted to repeat his request of May 18th that an all-party committee be established to examine the funding of political activity between and during elections.

As well as legislation, the committee could look at measures to prevent corruption in public office, the statutory regulating of lobbyists, the protection of whistle-blowers and any other matters deemed appropriate. He had also proposed that an expert group should be set up in consultation with the party leaders to assist and advise the committee.

"The Fine Gael party responded by saying it would be involved, but the Labour Party will not be involved. I wish it would make up its mind on this issue," he said.

Mr Trevor Sargent (Green Party, Dublin North) asked the Taoiseach to note that it also wanted a ban on private and corporate donations and a limit on spending between elections.