Irish Examiner view: Food for thought

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe TD. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos

In recent days we have learned a good deal about the spending of politicians at election time, from Paschal Donohoe’s posters to Sinn Féin’s hotel invoices.

There was a time when this unregulated field gave rise to many urban legends — not all of them legends, and many of them rural — but tighter regulation and greater transparency in the modern age mean the wilder excesses of election spending such as the porter levy immortalised by Breandán Ó hEithir are gone.

Money has to be raised before it can be spent, and raising funds is a necessary activity for politicians of all stripes: Elections are an expensive business. 

Hence the importance in decades past of the church-gate collections which could keep a political party solvent for a year, and the more recent focus on events as various as raffles and golf classics.

If politicians could speak frankly, however, many would surely welcome the abolition of one potential funding stream — the “rubber chicken circuit”, or round of fundraising meals held by party outposts all over Ireland.

The circuit was immortalised by Charles Haughey’s unflagging dedication to it when in the political wilderness following the arms trial. For many politicians, those endless late-night journeys might be too high a price to pay, even for the Taoiseach’s office.