Sir, - If firms and businessmen want to be able to buy political influence and politicians' votes, then the present system of corporate funding for political parties should continue. If, on the other hand, their motive is the public-spirited one of wishing to contribute to the democratic process rather than furthering their private interests, should not such private donors be permitted - indeed encouraged - to top up a system of modest public funding of political parties? An election commission, such as exists in many countries, could manage such public funding on fair and democratic lines, and there seems no good reason why private corporations concerned with the public good, or indeed individual citizens similarly motivated, should not be allowed to make donations to it.
Mr Tony Blair's government in Britain is currently putting a major piece of legislation, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, through the House of Commons, to govern public and private funding of future elections and referendums in the UK. This Bill is based on the proposals of the Neill Committee on Standards in Public Life, which reviewed political funding around the world. It has many provisions we could usefully adopt here.
The British Bill establishes an elections commission to supervise elections and referendums. It bans foreign and anonymous donations to political parties. It requires public disclosure of donations, provides for free mailshots and free broadcasts in elections and imposes a ceiling on campaign expenditure by political parties in addition to ceilings for individual candidates.
As regards referendums, the British Government's Bill provides for equal funding for designated umbrella groups on the Yes and No sides, if such exist; equal, free broadcasting time for each side; a ban on foreign funding; and a ceiling on political party and non-party spending. The provisions for equality between the Yes and No sides as regards public money and free broadcasting time are the same as those embodied in the McKenna and Coughlan judgments of the Irish Supreme Court, which some local commentators professed to find so exotic when first delivered.
Irish public opinion is horrified these days at the stories of some councillors and TDs receiving bribes for votes. But is there not evidence of a much larger kind of corruption in our public life? In the six referendums held between 1987 and 1995 governments spent public money that was contributed by citizens on both sides to help push through the views of one side. That never occurred in the referendums held in the 50 years before 1987.
Such a blatantly unfair and undemocratic practice was supported by Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and the PDs. So far as I know, not a single TD in any of these parties publicly objected, with the sole exception of Mr Michael McDowell SC when he was a PD Dail deputy. When it came to the 1995 Divorce referendum, The Irish Times and the Sunday Independent criticised the practice editorially. But the political parties mentioned would undoubtedly be resorting to it still, had not the Supreme Court declared its manifest unconstitutionality at the behest of Patricia McKenna in her capacity as a private citizen.
Does this not tell us something about a corruption of democratic values, an arrogance and complacency of political mentality, pervading the parties mentioned, in comparison with which accepting bribes for planning permissions might be considered by some as relative peccadillos? - Yours, etc.,
Anthony Coughlan, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin 2.