Law on referendum funding to change

REFERENDUM laws will be changed before the country next goes to the polls to ensure that any group or party campaigning will have to fully disclose where their funding comes from.

Environment Minister John Gormley said changes will be made to current referendum legislation to ensure complete transparency.

He was responding to revelations in yesterday’s Irish Examiner that Libertas founder and anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley has contracts worth more than €200 million with the US military.

Mr Gormley said there was no proof that Mr Ganley’s contracts were related to the funding for his no campaign, but added that current laws mean campaign groups do not have to reveal where their funding came from.

“Under law he is not obliged to make that declaration, that is an oversight and that has to be addressed. There’s no question about it that they were very well funded. I’m not a hundred per cent sure where that money came from, but under law he is entitled to behave in the way be is behaving, but that has now to be addressed,” he said.

Mr Gormley said laws will be changed to ensure more transparency.

“I would hope that for any future referendum in this country that we will have a mechanism in place where funding will be completely transparent.”

He said to do this would require amendments to existing legislation which “would be simple enough” and “could be put in place before a referendum would ever take place again”.

Mr Gormley was speaking at the Green Party’s annual think-in in Tralee where parliamentary party members discussed the Lisbon treaty, the economy and the party’s plans for next year’s elections.

Green Party chairman, Senator Dan Boyle, said next summer’s elections will strengthen his party’s position in Irish politics: “We have a degree of confidence that having had 15 months in government and the achievements in those 15 months that when we have those elections we will have a track record to seek the support of the electorate,” he said.

Mr Gormley would not say whether or not he favoured Mary Harney staying on as Health Minister after the PD party winds up next month.

“These are not questions for me, it’s the Taoiseach who decides who stays on as minister,” he said.

“We’re more than happy to talk to members of the PDs if they do become defunked some time in the future, we’re more than happy to talk to their councillors.