A LIMIT on local election spending could be in place by polling day in 2009, according to Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who hit out at Opposition support for corporate donations.
During Dáil questions, Mr Gormley claimed that the "Labour Party is much closer to my colleagues in Fianna Fáil with regard to corporate donations than the Green Party because it sees no problem at all with corporate donations".
But Joanna Tuffy (Lab, Dublin Mid-West) said it was a "bit rich" for the Minister to berate other parties when he "wanted to increase the amount of donations that could be made to a political party so he could give more of his salary to his own party, which would then be spending on himself and his own election campaigns". She added that the Labour Party introduced limits on general elections expenditure and on dealing with accountability and transparency in relation to donations.
Labour's Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central) said that "considering there will be local elections next summer, it's ridiculous that there's a cap on general election spending but no cap whatsoever, in fact the sky's the limit, on local election spending". While there are no limits on local election spending, donations of more than €635 must be disclosed.
Mr Lynch pointed to the rejection by the Tánaiste, Brian Cowen, of the commission's proposal that it could initiate inquiries without first receiving a complaint, and asked if the Government was telling the commission to "just buzz off" on local election spending as well.
Mr Gormley said a Green Paper on local government reform, to be published shortly, "will examine the question of capping expenditure at election time". He was committed to that "and it is possible to do it between now and the local elections next summer".
He rejected Mr Lynch's suggestion that the Green Party was turning its back on the Standards in Public Office Commission. He said he was "committed to putting an electoral commission in place that will examine the entire question of funding . It may even suggest a ban on corporate donations."
He added: "If the Government was to impose a ban on corporate donations, Labour Party members would be out of their seats saying they did not want it. The Labour Party accepts donations from builders or anyone else, but my party does not."
When Fine Gael spokesman Phil Hogan asked Mr Gormley if he could give an assurance that no member or public representative of his party accepted corporate donations, the Minister said he had never come across an instance of it and "we have a rule in the Green Party that we do not accept corporate donations".
