The funding of politics is in the news again, this time in Britain, where three multi-millionaires, each offering £2 million, have decided to provide much of the funding the Labour Party needs, and can spend, on the next general election.
This development, and the "sleaze" controversy it has aroused, are a reminder that political funding remains an unresolved issue here, where the Government has recently moved to increase the amount parties may spend at the next general election, and our political parties remain at loggerheads over political funding by firms and individuals.
There are three distinct issues here: first, limits on party election spending; second, the sources of party finance; and third, the emerging evidence now being investigated by one or other of the tribunals, that some senior Fianna Fail ministers used political donations to enrich themselves personally.
Until 1963 political parties were not formally recognised here, partly a reflection of our founders' utopian and unrealistic belief that we could avoid the emergence of party politics. The Civil War and the re-emergence of the Labour Party after the struggle for independence put paid to that illusion. For 40 years candidates in Irish elections stood in theory as individuals: party labels did not appear on ballot papers until authorised by the 1963 Act. And, perhaps because limiting candidates spending seemed anachronistic, and controlling party spending seemed difficult to organise, all limits on spending disappeared.
This favoured Fianna Fail, then in government, because it was better placed to get support from business. And Fianna Fail was moving towards the Taca system of party funding set up by Neil Blaney.
Not until the 1981 election did Fine Gael seriously match Fianna Fail's fundraising efforts, challenging it on more or less equal financial terms in the three elections of 1981-1982. It involved a shift from business contributions based on businessmen's party loyalties, and towards contributions made by businesses to all the main parties, more or less proportionately. The danger of government decisions being influenced by contributions to parties was obviated in Fine Gael by a Chinese Wall between contributions and ministers. But such voluntary policing depended on all parties sharing the same standards, which did not prove to be the case.
Two distorting factors devalued and eventually undermined the more or less proportionate contribution system. A small group reappeared, the Golden Circle, who saw potential business benefits from major contributions to Fianna Fail. Then there was the emergence of contributions given to individual politicians, which a small number of people in Fianna Fail, encouraged by the example of their leader, Charles Haughey, seem to have retained for their own personal benefit.
This abuse derived from a breakdown in party discipline from the late 1980s, reflected in personal campaigns in constituencies by candidates in contention with party colleagues.
The multi-seat system had always sparked sporadic outbreaks of rivalry between same party candidates at elections, but they had been largely contained. In Fine Gael tight discipline and remarkable unselfishness by candidates, involving vote-splitting agreements in key constituencies, meant it ail won the extra seats needed to put it in government in November 1982, with fewer votes than Fianna Fail.
But this discipline seems to have broken down in both main parties after 1987. Party campaigns in constituencies were increasingly paralleled by personal campaigns, and money channelled through individuals to the party sometimes failed to reach it.
In the past candidates sometimes had to partly finance party campaigns in their constituencies, a practice I sought to eliminate in Fine Gael as it could militate against people of slender means. Our political system reached the stage where, for a small handful of politicians willingly to embezzle party funds, and powerful enough to prevent this being exposed, elections became a potential source of personal profit.
Revelations about these malpractices, and suspicions about government decisions being influenced by payments to party or politicians, have raised the parties has been less than wholehearted. The Progressive Democrats were the first to resist the idea of replacing private party funding by public funding, and the two main parties clearly remain reluctant to ban private, including business, funding of politics.
For Fianna Fail this stance has a pragmatic basis, although the exposure of past leadership abuses might have led it to feel it wise to favour State financial support for elections.
It is more puzzling that Fine Gael should want to keep private funding, which puts it at a clear disadvantage to a better-equipped Fianna Fail. Fine Gael in 1991 led the move to restrict private funding to nominal amounts, in response to a proposal I made.
Labour has adopted a clear stance and, as Labour support will be needed to put Fine Gael back in government, we must presume Fine Gael will have to reverse its position. So it would seem more sensible for it to come out in favour of State funding now, thus putting Fianna Fail and the PDs on the defensive in the next election campaign.
The truth is that private, including business, funding was always a dubious way to finance parties or elections. We deluded ourselves into thinking that safeguards could protect us against abuses of the system. We now know we were wrong in this belief. The political parties should now have the wit to respond to deep public concern on this score. That is the very least that needs to be done in an effort to restore some measure of confidence in our political system.
It is true that only a small minority of politicians have abused their trust. But the vast majority of honest politicians should realise they are all suffering from the misdeeds of that few and need to take effective action to recover lost ground. It should not be left to one party to provide an isolated lead on this.