Senator de Burca’s contribution to the Report on Referendum on Treaty of Lisbon: Discussion with Standards in Public Office Commission.
In attendance: Mr. David Waddell, Mr. Aidan Moore and Ms Jacqueline Moore of the Standards in Public Office Commission
I welcome the representatives from the Standards in Public Office Commission and thank them for their report and the important set of recommendations they have made. We must not be complacent about our democracy. The commission’s role in monitoring expenditure on elections, election processes and so on is an important one because the public has a right to know who funds the parties and individuals that put themselves forward for election. Likewise, when we have important referenda, the public has a right to know who funds the campaigns that advocate support, or otherwise, for the various propositions. I agree with Mr. Waddell that the 2008 referendum highlighted serious flaws in legislation and I commend the Standards in Public Office Commission on responding so quickly and providing the Oireachtas with these recommendations. I sincerely hope they will be acted upon.
In playing out any referendum campaign or election it is important to have a level playing field so that those who participate operate from the same basis and are subject to the same requirements for transparency. It is in the public interest to know where funding for various campaigns comes from, but it is also important to understand the agenda of those who promote particular viewpoints or positions. In recent years, political parties have been subject to much more stringent controls over their funding and their expenditure on elections, referendum campaigns and so on. That is a good thing. Our democracy is all the better for having those safeguards in place.
What seems to have been highlighted by the 2008 referendum is that third parties seem to enjoy freedom or to be exempted from some of the controls that are in place to ensure full transparency on the part of political parties. The emergence of Libertas as a campaigning organisation around the time of the referendum on the Lisbon treaty made us very aware of the impact such third parties can have. There was also legitimate public interest in from where funding had come for what appeared to be an extremely well-resourced campaign. While the political parties who engaged in that referendum campaign had to be clear and transparent about the source of their large donations, the same conditions did not seem to apply to Libertas.
It is almost a year since the Lisbon referendum was held. Will Mr. Waddell indicate whether the Libertas organisation is in compliance with the requirements of the Standards in Public Office Commission concerning donors and spending on the referendum campaign? Is Libertas considered to be in compliance with the requirements of the legislation?
I am concerned that if those recommendations are not implemented, in future we could find ourselves in a position where private individuals and organisations set up around them could operate on the basis of a very opaque agenda, and one which the public has no opportunity to establish whether it would support or not. It is important that we put these recommendations in place so that we create a level playing field and ensure we have a strong democracy.
The term “the best democracy money can buy” was used by the journalist Greg Palast. If we do not put these safeguards in place there is a danger that we will end up with individuals and organisations being able to buy the outcome of elections or referendum campaigns. That would not be in the interests of democracy. We have all seen examples of businessmen buying football clubs and whatever takes their fancy at the time, but our democracy is too precious for that. I very much support the recommendations that have been made today. My party is willing to support them and ensure they are enacted in legislation.
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Had a political party received 35,000 copies of a book, would that have been considered a donation? The second question pertains to sanctions. Mr. Waddell commented earlier on the lack of sanctions available in the event that a third party does not comply with the commission’s requirements. Were Libertas not to respond or to fulfil the requests made by the commission, is it the case that absolutely no sanction applies at present? In other words, Libertas is responding and providing the commission with information because it sees fit to so do. However, were it to choose not to do so, neither Mr. Waddell’s organisation nor the Government could do anything to so oblige it and it would be free to disregard all communications from the commission, if it so chose, without any consequences.
