TD calls for Ahern cabinet members to step down

A CALL has been made for serving Fianna Fáil TDs who were members of former taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s cabinet to “resign and retire from public life”.

Independent TD Séamus Healy highlighted the references by the Mahon tribunal report to the “various attacks” by ministers “in an attempt to undermine” and “deflect it from its business”.

Calling for still serving TDs who were part of the Ahern administration to resign, Mr Healy also called for the withdrawal of the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill which cuts corporate donations and introduces quotas to ensure 30 per cent of all election candidates are women. The Tipperary TD was speaking during the second stage debate on the Bill, which he said should be withdrawn “and at a minimum, redrafted on the basis of the tribunal’s recommendations”.

He said the report’s recommendations and findings were “far reaching and must be taken into account in this legislation”. The report published yesterday stated, he said, that “corruption affected every level of Irish political life and was allowed to continue unabated”.

Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Dara Calleary said “all of us who seek to serve the public are sullied today by what is in that report”. He asked “is it time once and for all to ban corporate donations?”.

The Bill cuts corporation donations to €200 before the donor must be identified but Mr Calleary said funding by the exchequer was perhaps “where we need to go for a few years, as we reassess our priorities”.

Wicklow Labour TD Anne Ferris said if the information about the former taoiseach had come out at the 2007 elections, “I wonder how different things might have been”.

It was “quite incredible” that Mr Ahern failed to account truthfully for more than €165,000.

“This is the same Bertie Ahern who gave the performance of a lifetime when he told his sob story on RTÉ, and has now been found to be totally lacking in credibility,” she said.

During the debate on the introduction of gender quotas Mary Mitchell O’Connor (FG, Dún Laoghaire) said she hated quotas but she was arguing for them to ensure a certain number of women made it onto the ticket in each constituency. Ms O’Connor said she was not arguing their absence was down to prejudice.

“It is inertia rather than active prejudice that is the largest speed bump on the road towards women’s progress.” Under the legislation if a party does not have at least 30 per cent female candidates in a general election, it risks losing half its State funding.

Heather Humphreys (FG, Cavan-Monaghan) said a significant attitude change was needed to address the issue and the start of this should be to change the Constitution which refers to the role of women in the home. She said the words “neglect their duties in the home” were enshrined in the Constitution and this needed to change.

Just 25 of the 166 TDs are women and Sandra McLellan (SF, Cork East) said “one of the biggest obstacles to political life for women is childcare in view of the times at which meetings are held, the time required to be dedicated to political activity, the male-dominated culture of society generally, the network surrounding politics and, critically, the length of time away from one’s family and children”.

Labour Dublin Mid West TD Joanna Tuffy opposed the quota proposals because she believed “they are very likely to be unconstitutional”. She also believed they were undemocratic and discriminatory.

Ms Tuffy said most EU countries had not legislated for quotas and in most countries where it had “it has been unsuccessful”. She said that in a majority of EU states some parties had voluntary quotas but “it is not necessarily the norm or the majority of parties that have voluntary quotas”.