Last year, 52,000 tax clearance certificates were issued by the Revenue Commissioners. There were, therefore, 52,000 people or businesses which met a standard of demonstrated tax compliance which the Fianna Fail parliamentary party has so far declined to meet. The proposal that Fianna Fail candidates for elected office should produce a tax clearance certificate before running for office came from the party's leadership but was nonetheless, rejected. The suggestion will now be re-examined by the committee which advocated it.

To the best of my knowledge, no other party requires its candidates to meet the test of having to produce a tax clearance certificate before standing under the party name for election. Fine Gael, for example, has a code of conduct, but it doesn't include this.

Who are the people who do have to jump hurdles that legislators don't have to?

Any person or business seeking a public sector contract with the State for a value of £5,000 (€6,348) or more has to get a tax clearance certificate. The recipients of all State and pubic authority grants, subsidies and similar payments. This includes companies receiving FAS grants and farmers receiving Government (rather than EU) grants.

Those seeking and renewing certain licences have to get a tax clearance certificate. Publicans renewing their licences have to meet the test which legislators don't. Retailers of intoxicating liquor, too. Bookies do.

Licensed hauliers, gaming licence holders, money lenders and auctioneers all have to get tax clearance certificates. People seeking the first time buyer's grant have to get a form of tax clearance (although it is not strictly a tax clearance certificate under sections 1094 and 1095 of the Taxes Consolidation Act). But the builders of their houses have to get tax clearance certificates, according to the Revenue press office.

One would imagine that the assembled auctioneers, bookies, builders and publicans are not all squeaky clean, whiter than white, self-righteous occupiers of the moral high ground, as is the characterisation of would-be elected representatives who would impose this test on themselves. Nor is it evident that huge numbers of talented auctioneers, bookies, builders and publicans are put off entering the respective trades or professions (as you will) by the requirement to produce a tax clearance certificate. Why then would people be put off entering politics and seeking election by the awesome burden of getting a tax clearance certificate?

There are surely plenty of people behind those 52,000 tax clearance certificates who would make excellent candidates for election. Imagine, as many as 52,000 pre-cleared, squeaky clean, eligible candidates. To those who go to the trouble of getting their tax clearance certificate, it is at least ironic, and probably galling, to contrast the decision of the largest party's parliamentarians with their government's granting of sweeping new powers to the Revenue Commissioners in this year's Finance Act, all in a mighty effort to create a compliance culture in the State. What compliance culture? One which doesn't extend to parliamentarians not seeing fit to meet a standard of demonstrated tax compliance which they, as legislators, impose on their constituents, whose support they avidly seek at election time?

Fianna Fail opponents of the move would say that one party shouldn't have to prove its "innocence" more than any other party.

But then, why bother having any party-specific rules of conduct or ethics, if the right thing is to wait until all parties move together? Political parties, like businesses, social organisations and trade associations, should be prepared to shape their own identity and to set their own standards. In business, it is only when the cost of moving first to a higher standard is very high, that each company waits for the industry to move together.

There is also a problem for the market leader, whose higher profile inevitably attracts critical attention with the result that nothing it does on its own satisfies its critics. In politics, the cost of a voluntary requirement for a tax clearance certificate is surely very low in reality. How many candidates or elected representatives would have to withdraw, having failed to settle tax liabilities?

The fear that striking a leading stance on an issue will not even neutralise opposition is a poor reason not to do the right thing. And if this is the right thing, but ought to apply to all parties, the government parties cannot escape the fact that it is within their powers, and only theirs, to impose this rule across the board in politics. What's the excuse then?

Oliver O'Connor is an investment funds specialist