Fianna Fail faced further Opposition attempts to portray it as the party of big business yesterday as the Government Bill to increase election spending limits began what will be stormy progress through the Oireachtas.
Yesterday Labour leaders marched to Fianna Fail headquarters to highlight their claim that that party is seeking to "buy" the next election with donations from big business.
With Fine Gael under its new leader, Mr Michael Noonan, now vying with Labour for the high ground on the issue, senior Fianna Fail figures said privately yesterday that they expect a sustained opposition campaign to embarrass them.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, came under immediate Fine Gael and Labour attack in the Seanad yesterday as he introduced the Electoral Bill.
The Bill proposes electoral changes, including the introduction of electronic voting. However, most political attention has been focused on its provision to increase by 50 per cent the amount political parties can spend during election campaigns.
Mr Dempsey said yesterday that the new spending limits were the same for all candidates, and "what Fianna Fail and Labour are entitled to spend at elections is determined by the number of candidates nominated".
However, Labour claims the Bill would increase Fianna Fail's potential spending in an election campaign from £2 million to £3 million, and that while all parties will be entitled to spend more only Fianna Fail has the capacity to raise the necessary funds from business donors to enable it to spend up to the new limit.
In the Seanad yesterday, Senator Fintan Coogan of Fine Gael called the Bill "a Trojan horse to bring in surreptitious funding".
Senator Joe Costello of Labour said: "Fianna Fail is seeking to buy voters in the next election."
However, defenders of corporate funding claimed the opposition was "playing to the gallery" on the issue and that a ban on corporate funding on its own would not remove the possibility of corruption from the political system.
The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, yesterday accused the Opposition of deliberately seeking to confuse the public. She did not see why the law should ban corporate donations while allowing wealthy individuals who owned corporations to give money. In a high-profile gesture for the benefit of invited photographers, the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, and other senior figures walked into the building housing the new Fianna Fail offices to hand in leaflets on the issue.
The party literature, published yesterday, claims the Government's raising of the spending limits will be followed by "a massive fund-raising drive with wealthy donors" by Fianna Fail.
"What promises or understandings will be exchanged to fund this electoral spending spree?" the leaflet asks.