The Government will proceed within a week with plans to limit corporate donations, regardless of objections from the Opposition parties. It is expected that a limit of some £4,000 will be introduced and plans to raise election spending limits will go ahead.
The move follows months of political controversy over whether the Opposition parties would accept a Government invitation to join an all-party committee to discuss corporate donations.
A Government spokesman said last night that the Taoiseach intended that the Government would go ahead on its own, introducing legislation which would become law by summer.
Fine Gael yesterday introduced a Private Member's Bill to ban corporate donations to all political parties. Responding to the Government's plans, the party's justice spokesman, Mr Alan Shatter, said the Government was "conjuring up a smokescreen" in a desperate attempt to deflect from his party's comprehensive proposals.
A Labour Party spokesman said the Taoiseach had refused to contemplate a ban on corporate donations or to have the matter discussed in public in the presence of the responsible Minister. Labour refused the invitation to join the all-party committee because it wanted the banning of corporate donations as a precondition.
Labour has said the plan to increase electoral spending will benefit Fianna Fail the most and calculated that the party could spend an extra £1 million at the next general election. The Government withdrew an offer to abandon the increase in March following Labour's refusal to join the all-party review.
Under the existing Electoral Bill, candidates and their political parties are required to keep spending below £20,000 in a five-seater, £17,000 in a four-seater and £14,000 in a three-seat constituency. However, under proposals contained in the Electoral Amendment Act these would be increased to £30,000, £25,000 and £20,000.
The Fine Gael Bill would prohibit corporate donations and make it an offence to make such a donation or to accept it. The legislation would allow for a maximum personal donation of £1,000 in any one year to any political party or individual. The party plans to debate the new legislation after Easter.
Its leader, Mr Michael Noonan, said that, while the Taoiseach might say he had legal advice that banning corporate donations was unconstitutional, his own advice differed. While there was a constitutional difficulty in banning personal donations the situation was different for donations from corporate entities which were not protected under the Constitution.
He disagreed with the reasoning offered by the Taoiseach that corporate donors could find a way round the legislation by making personal donations through individuals. "If we stop making laws on the grounds that they would be broken we would make no laws," he said.