It’s the secrecy, not the sources, of campaigns we should be policing

Policy makers don’t really like advocacy, it puts them under pressure. That’s why they make it difficult to fund, writes Fergus Finlay.

I DON’T know if you heard it, but my goodness that was some unseemly row between Colm O’Gorman and David Quinn on Seán O’Rourke’s RTÉ Radio 1 programme the other morning? It was so epic that I’m guessing it will have been replayed a few times.

Both men refused to let O’Rourke get a word in edgeways — they let their dislike of each other prevail to such an extent that both became completely incoherent. I understand that feeling because I’ve fallen into that trap a few times myself.

But I was, I have to say, really taken aback that two people who are generally such consummate professionals (whether you agree with them or not) behaved like such babies. It was worse than the sort of thing you hear as an election campaign reaches its climax and everyone is living on their nerves.

What made it even worse, however, was that they agreed with each other on the subject they came on to discuss. That irony, of course, was totally lost in the visceral nature of the exchanges.

The subject is a piece of spectacularly bad law — actually, if the truth be told, several pieces of bad law — that have their roots in a deep bureaucratic distrust of non-governmental organisations. That bunch of laws is essentially designed to make it really difficult to fund advocacy and political campaigning.

There are thousands of people in Ireland who believe in campaigning, and in activism. By and large (although again this is a matter of perspective) they want to campaign to change things for the better. When people come together around a common purpose like that, it’s often called civic society.

Civic society led the way around same sex marriage in Ireland. It forced the government to capitulate on the issue of water charges. It persuaded people to vote to change our constitution in regard to the rights of children.

They’re just three recent examples in which what you might call people power, organised into a coherent campaign, changed things. It changes some fundamental things, and it changes some things fundamentally (and there’s a difference).

But here’s the thing. In a democracy, people gathering together around a vision, with a plan, putting together a campaign, developing a set of messages, putting up posters, marching, knocking on doors, is healthy. In fact it’s what democracy is about. It enhances democracy. Nobody has to agree with the aims and objectives — in the end, 99% of the time, democracy will come up with the right decision. (There will be those, of course, who would argue that Brexit and Trump prove democracy wrong, but that’s a different story.) There is only one circumstance in which all that campaigning activity damages democracy. If it’s not out in the open. When, for example, a campaign is funded by secret money (whether from home or abroad) that is potentially fatal to democracy.

So our laws, you would think, would be built around that principle. They would insist on transparency. No matter what the purpose of the campaign, the bottom line would be that everyone would know how it was funded and organised — where the money came from, how much was spent, how many people were employed in the campaign, what proportion was spent of what sort of material (posters, newspaper ads, whatever).

But in fact, we don’t bother much about that. Instead we’ve constructed a set of laws that are designed to make civic society campaigning as difficult as possible.

So, for instance, let’s say a group of us want to set up a campaign that is aimed at ensuring every child in Ireland has a right in law to warm, dry and decent shelter. The thing we want to achieve for children is what is known as a political purpose. We become subject to all sorts of constraints. We can’t accept any donations larger than €100 for our campaign without going through all sorts of hoops. We can’t accept any donations at all from abroad (apart from the €100 from an Irish citizen living abroad).

Now, if we want to raise money to build homes for children, there’s no restriction at all. But if we want to build a campaign to give them a right in law, it’s going to be really easy to run foul of the law.

The truth is that policy makers don’t really like advocacy, it puts them under pressure. That’s why they make it difficult to fund, and why they have set up the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo for short) to, among other things, regulate and control how much money charities and others can take in and where it comes from.

But here’s the other thing. Ireland believes in advocacy — elsewhere. Twenty years ago, when Ireland’s first white paper on foreign policy was produced, it contained a strong emphasis on supporting human rights around the world — the rights of women and of children especially. It was updated a couple of years ago, in a document called The Global Island. That stresses Ireland’s commitment to supporting human rights measures and campaigns throughout the world.

The most recent report of the Irish Aid programme talks at- length about partnership with, and support for, non-governmental organisations overseas. It even defines them, as organisations that “support service delivery where government services are absent or inadequate, and (that) advocate for fairer resource allocation and respect for human rights”.

In other words, we preach one set of principles abroad, and we practice another at home.

I guess the reason we’re having this row now is because we’re on the brink of a controversial and probably very divisive referendum about abortion. As a result, the pro-choice activists and the pro-life activists are watching each other like hawks, and seeking to secure whatever advantage they can.

You don’t have to take sides in the upcoming referendum to know that it is going to be a hard fought campaign. Both sides realise that winning will require funding, and if they can’t get access to it for themselves they will seek to deprive the other side as much as possible.

For the life of me, I can’t understand that. You can’t make change for the better — and you can’t defend the status quo if that’s what you believe — without getting out and campaigning. I’ve been involved in dozens, maybe hundreds, of campaigns over the years, and I know they cost money. I also know that transparent and accountable campaigns are not just an intrinsic part of a democratic system, they strengthen it.

So why the vicious arguments? After all the shouting is over, both David Quinn and Colm O’Gorman agree. And the funny thing is — Sipo agree too. They want to police higher standards in public life, not where campaign contributions come from, and arbitrary limits to the amount that can be donated.

There should be one rule, and one rule only. You should be able to raise as much as you can, within reasonable limits, and spend it effectively. But you must do it out in the open. It’s the secrecy, not the sources, that Sipo should be mandated to police.