Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore has called on the Government to introduce strict spending limits for candidates in next year’s local government elections.
Mr Gilmore said the failure to set such limits “favours parties with deep war chests and individual candidates with substantial personal wealth”.
Speaking tonight at a Labour Party selection convention in the Cork city and Blarney electoral areas, Mr Gilmore said some candidates in the 2004 local elections spent “tens of thousands” of euros on their campaigns.
“The spending limits for candidates in the general and European elections have not been perfect, but they have made it more difficult for candidates to ‘buy’ an election,” he said.
“A candidate’s chance of getting elected to a local authority should not be dependent on the size of his or her bank account.”
Mr Gilmore added: “While the green paper on local government, published earlier this week, did not make any specific recommendation for the introduction of spending limits, it noted that ‘submissions made in relation to expenditure controls on local election expenditure were generally supportive’.
“At the launch of the green paper this week, Minister for the Environment John Gormley, indicated that he was supportive of the introduction of spending limits, but he did not give any commitment that legislation or regulations would be introduced.
“My fear is that while Minister Gormley may be personally supportive, Fianna Fáil – as in so many other areas – simply will not allow it to go ahead, or will delay it to such an extent that it will not apply for next year’s local elections.”
“The commission also suggested that responsibility for the supervision and monitoring of disclosure of donations to local election candidates should be transferred from the local authorities to an independent body. This is a suggestion I support and given their own experience with other elections it would seem that Sipo itself is the body best suited to this task.”
Mr Gilmore said spending limits on local elections could apply from a fixed date, given that the elections are held every five years, whereas there is no fixed date for general elections.