The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, indicated yesterday he wanted a sharp increase in the limits on political donations.
Mr Cullen declined to indicate what new limits he had in mind, but said it would be wrong to use artificially low limits to fool people into thinking the system was largely free of donations.
When asked if he wanted a system free of limits, he said: "I'm not saying that." However, the "transparency" of donations was more important than their size.
Mr Cullen also said the scale of Irish corporate donations was modest by international standards and that spending by the political parties kept people in printing companies in jobs.
Stating that the system of confining election spending records to within three weeks of a poll was a nonsense, Mr Cullen said he wanted a unified system accounting for all donations. This would distinguish between corporate and personal donations. He hopes to finalise legislative proposals before the end of the year.
His review of the donation systems follows the publication of a Standards in Public Office Commission report into spending by general election candidates last year, which showed that most Ministers exceeded the limits.
His comments were rejected by Labour. Its environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said claims that Labour wanted the tax system to exclusively fund the political system were not true. Mr Gilmore said the Government wanted to introduce changes "which would have the sole purpose of making it easier for Fianna Fáil to spend more money on election campaigns".
