Fine Gael has said it will abolish ministerial "golden handshakes", cut the Taoiseach’s and ministers’ salaries, overhaul politicians’ expenses and ban corporate donations.
Outlining its plans for political reform today, the party said it would ensure that ministers only receive their pensions at retirement age and insist that TDs’ expenses are vouched.
Unveiling the proposals in Kilkenny, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said political life had been dominated for the past 13 years by the politics of cronyism, to the benefit of a small group of insiders who were friends of Fianna Fáil.
“Government ministers were paid too much and given huge sums of goodbye money as they left politics, even though they brought the country to its financial knees.”
If politicians were asking people to make sacrifices, they had to show an example, Mr Kenny said. He had done so by being the first public servant to take a voluntary pay cut and by campaigning for radical reform of the political system.
Fianna Fáil, on the basis of their record, could not be trusted on the crucial and sensitive issue of political reform, he said.
Fine Gael is also proposing that ministers are only paid their ministerial pensions when they reach the national retirement age and a ban on taxpayer subsidies of over €60,000 for any politician’s pension.
The party’s environment spokesman Phil Hogan said politic failure lay at the heart of Ireland’s economic failure. Since World War II, most countries in Europe had reformed their political systems but Ireland had not.
Further reform measures proposed by Mr Hogan include the granting of the vote in Presidential elections to Irish people living overseas, the strengthening of Freedom of Information legislation, a whistleblowers’ charter and a register of lobbyists.
Fine Gael also plans to establish a citizens’ assembly, composed of 100 members of the public, to make recommendations on electoral reform. A petitions system would also be introduced and the age of voting reduced to 17 years of age.
Mr Kenny rejected Green Party claims that the Fine Gael had questions to answer about the source of its funding.
He said the party would publish audited accounts later this year and stated that the vast majority of its funding came from draws and membership contributions. Only about €30-50,000 came from corporate donations, he said.
The Fine Gael leader said he had reversed his predecessor Michael Noonan’s ban on corporate donations to the party because he didn’t want to compete on an uneven pitch against Fianna Fáil. Since then, however, he had reduced corporate donations by 90 per cent.
Mr Hogan said the Greens were in a poor position to talk about corporate donations, having failed to fulfil a promise to ban these after over three years in Government.
Mr Kenny repeated that he had “no problem” with journalist Vincent Browne, whose leaders’ debate on TV3 will take place tomorrow without the Fine Gael leader.
He said he had decided to do three debates during the campaign, a three-way, a five-way and one in Irish. This was three times more than during the last election campaign.
People were more interested in meeting leaders face to face and this wasn’t the kind of election where they should be “tied” to television, he claimed.
The abolition of the Seanad, a reduction of 20 in the number of TDs and a revamp of the way the Dáil does its business are also part of the party's proposals.
The reform plans were published in advance of the party’s full manifesto launch later in the week.
