Politicians sometimes like to compare the running of the State to household management. So now it seems that all around, one sees only dirty linen and items of clothing left hung out to dry. Housework is never-ending. As soon as you've wiped a table, there's a floor to be swept. Sometimes all you see is dust and grime. Encrusted carbon that was once good food is caked on the oven. Appliances are always breaking. Things that never worked and were tolerated for years should be dumped. Liberal applications of bleach are required in certain parts. Springtime serves to illuminate what has not been cleaned up. How true. How apt is the flat I once had (not my present abode, I must quickly add) as a metaphor for the governance of the State today.
The dirty linen of the interaction of some politicians and certain businesses is being washed at the tribunals with an openness that would shame a naturist. It is already being concluded that now is finally the time to set up State funding for political parties and to ban business funding to any significant degree.
We know there is an argument of principle about this question. We know that there are practicalities to be addressed. We know that political parties take different views on the question, perhaps not entirely unrelated to the system under which they would each benefit the most. What we don't know is whether or not business would care a hoot if its funding of political parties were banned.
I suspect the management and shareholders of most businesses wouldn't care. Of course, not if one were to accept the strident, pitiably wrong, views of Deputy Joe Higgins, the one and only remaining socialist in the Dail, with fixity of tenure on the high moral ground. One would then conclude that boards all over the State would meet in emergency session to gnash their collective teeth at the ending of their easy opportunity to seduce and corrupt our pliant politicians.
Why should ordinary decent businesses care if they are precluded from funding political parties? It is surely now too much of a hassle, what with the Revenue examining "pick-me-up" arrangements and the air of suspicion that surrounds political fundraising among business. Besides, political contributions are not, and never will be, tax deductible. Would many businesses really be upset if they were never to be asked again for a political contribution, if they did not have to decide who or when to fund?
It is surely worth understanding from the other side of the fence, as it were, how, when and why businesses have given money. Do we know what proportion of businesses have made political contributions? Presumably, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are well placed to estimate this. My guess is it would be a relatively small proportion.
A new business will hardly be able to spare the cash to make a political contribution. In a privately owned company, a political contribution is effectively a personal donation of the main shareholder. If businesses were stopped from making contributions, one would imagine that business owners and sole traders would still feel capable of donating as individual citizens. No business is a citizen.
The decision to make political contributions must be different in large, publicly owned businesses. Some have felt it necessary either to make contributions all round or to make none. Given the latter, I would think that some large PLCs would be delighted to have the decision removed from them. Having influence, being known, being able to lobby - these are presumably the main reasons why businesses have made political contributions. If business contributions were banned, these would be achievable by other means, and will never, and ought not to be, stamped out. Political power is competed for, and not just at elections. Everyone who wants to make things happen (socialists and the media included) lobbies and seeks influence between elections. Like any game (and that is not to belittle it), the critical thing is that the rules should be clear, fair and open to democratic amendment. The playing of the game by whoever wishes to play should be, at least, discernible.
The tax required to fund political parties is relatively so small as to be a matter of principle rather than an identifiable new burden. Sometimes a principle has to yield. The ability to fund political parties could now simply be much more trouble than it's worth.
Oliver O'Connor is an investment funds specialist
