Green Party leader John Gormley has said he will introdue legislation to prevent big corporations from making political donations.
In his leaders' address at his party's national convention in Wexford tonight, Mr Gormley told delegates that he will use his powers as Minister for the Environment to bring in such laws, which he said would be the most radical piece of legislation on political funding ever.
"We are not compromised and we will break the link between big business and politics," he said.
Mr Gormley vowed also to restrict spending by political parties and reduce the limits at which donations have to be declared.
White-collar criminals with their "champagne and caviar" lifestyles would no longer get away with it, he said.
Mr Gormley also contended that Fianna Fail was not the only party to take money from builders but that Fine Gael and Labour had done it as well. He claimed that the Greens were the only party untainted by donations from business.
"We are not compromised and we will break the link between big business and politics," he said.
He also promised tougher planning laws.
"In the past some developers have thumbed their nose at the system knowing that they'd probably get away with it. If they happened to build without planning permission, they could always just apply for retention," he said.
"My new planning legislation will make rogue developers pay punitive fees to retain unpermitted buildings if they have flouted the rules. I will also abolish the loophole which allowed developers to use the planning retention system to avoid carrying out Environmental Impact Assessment."
Specifically referring to the economic crisis, he called for a new consensus approach to tackle what he said was a recession worse than anything encountered in the 1950s or 1930s in Ireland.
"Its consequences for people will be more profound and long-lasting. It is the suddenness and pace of this global recession that has taken people by surprise. Very few people remain unaffected by the huge increases in unemployment, by the lack of credit in our banks, by the reductions in their pay packets," he said.
He contended that oppsition parties were engaging in unnecessary bickering and grandstanding on this issue.
"We have a choice. We can choose to be swallowed up by the negativity, to be paralysed by fear, or wecome out fighting as a nation," he said.
