Parties in no position to query Libertas funds

COMPLAINTS by Seán Ó Neachtain MEP (Letters, September 22) about Libertas funding of the no campaign in the Lisbon Treaty referendum leaves him open to a charge of hypocrisy.

The recently-published Standards in Public Office report expressed dissatisfaction at the fact that of the €11.8m spent by political parties during the last general election campaign, less than €2m could be publicly traced.

All the rest, according to our political parties, were donations under the legal limit of €5,078 and, therefore, not liable to be declared.

Since it raises important issues about the functioning of our democracy, Mr Ó Neachtain should not get away with ignoring the fact that political parties spend multiples of what they declare as donations.

That political parties can get away with this and are not legally obliged to either publish annual accounts or declare the source of most of their funds is, therefore, a scandal. The fact that Libertas took on the political parties and beat them at their own game in the Lisbon referendum only adds a further dimension to the scandal.

It also highlights the hypocrisy of complaints by Government spokespersons such as Mr Ó Neachtain about the lack of information on Libertas funding when exactly the same applies to all political parties.

The solution to the problem is in the Government’s own hands. All it has to do is bring a bill before the Dáil declaring that all donations to all political groupings be disclosed under Irish law.

Anthony Leavy

Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13