ELECTION 2011: 17 DAYS TO GO: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 yesterday, the party said it would ensure that ministers were not paid their pensions before retirement age and insist TDs’ expenses are vouched.
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,” he said, speaking at the launch of the proposals in Kilkenny.
If politicians were asking people to make sacrifices, they had to show example, Mr Kenny said. He said he had a track record in doing this as 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 its record, could not be trusted on the crucial and sensitive issue of political reform, he said.
The plan includes a change of policy on corporate donations, with Fine Gael now saying it will ban such support from the business sector. The party is also proposing to hold a referendum on abolishing the Seanad within 12 months, cut the number of TDs by 20 and says it will ban taxpayer subsidies of more than €60,000 for any politician’s pension.
However, the proposed changes to ministerial severance payments and pensions will not apply to current or past ministers.
The party’s environment spokesman, Phil Hogan, said political failure lay at the heart of Ireland’s economic failure. Since the second World War, 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.
Another constitutional referendum would be held to reverse the effect of the Supreme Court Abbeylara decision and give Dáil committees full powers of investigation. The salary of the taoiseach would be capped at €200,000 and there would be proportional reductions in ministers’ salaries.
Fine Gael 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 Fine Gael had questions to answer about the source of its funding. He said the party would publish audited accounts in March and stated that the vast majority of its funding came from draws and membership contributions. Only about €30,000 to €50,000 came from corporate donations, he said; Fine Gael is fighting the election with a “war chest” of €2.3 million.
The Fine Gael leader said he had reversed his predecessor Michael Noonan’s ban on corporate donations to the party because at the time he did not 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.