The Dail returns next week after the Christmas recess and the method of funding our political system, along with expenditure at election time, will become major debating issues. The Coalition Government proposes to increase the spending limits that were established by the Electoral Act of 1997, a development that would allow Fianna Fail to spend about £3 million, or an estimated £1 million extra, in the coming general election. The Labour Party, Fine Gael and the Green Party are opposed to such legislation. In addition, the Labour Party is proposing that all corporate donations to politicians and to political parties should be banned and replaced by State funding. This is resisted, to varying degrees, by Fianna Fail, the Progressive Democrats and Fine Gael.
It is perfectly understandable that Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats - the parties that traditionally benefited most from the corporate sector - should seek to protect their long-established political and financial advantages. But the evidence that has been emerging from Dublin Castle and the work of the Moriarty and Flood tribunals about the grubby interface between business and politics has generated public pressures and concerns that cannot be ignored. The political mantra "no favours asked and none given" no longer satisfies the public. The very existence of large corporate donations is regarded as suspicious in a climate where politics and its public image require urgent refurbishment.
In that context, while the payment by Mr Denis O'Brien, formerly of ESAT Digiphone, of political donations of £50,000 each to Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Progressive Democrats was extraordinarily generous and quite within the law, it will almost certainly feed public cynicism. No doubt, as a spokesperson for Mr O'Brien explained, the primary aim was to assist the democratic process. And political parties are always in need of funding. As a high-flying entrepreneur and risk-taker, Mr O'Brien has made his mark in the areas of new technology and the deregulation of State utilities. And he stands to secure further rewards as the economy expands and his business interests grow. Given those circumstances, a benign attitude by whatever party or parties happen to be in government could hardly rate as a handicap.
The decision by the Labour Party to return its £50,000 donation is in keeping with its policy to end corporate funding and to place a limit of £2,000 on donations to political parties and £1,000 to individuals from all outside sources. No doubt it will remind the public of its gesture during the general election campaign. In the meantime, however, Fine Gael's decision to favour limited corporate funding, up to a ceiling of £4,000 for a party and £500 for an individual, will muddy the waters. It will ease the Coalition Government's task in arguing for new funding limits of £20,000 for a party and £5,000 for an individual. Instead of a clean sweep of reforms in the aftermath of the tribunal revelations, we will have another fudge. Public confidence in the political process will continue to suffer.