Noel Whelan:There has been a dramatic increase in the regulation of politics and campaigning in this country in the last 15 years. Some of the most intrusive, but necessary, regulation introduced concerns political donations and election expenditure.
Political donations above a certain amount must be declared and there is an upper limit on individual donations.
Expenditure limits have been introduced to curb the amount parties and candidates can spend during an election. These controls are designed to reduce the influence of money in politics and to go some way towards creating a more level playing field.
The system seeking to control donations and expenditure has some considerable weaknesses. For example, the period for which election expenditure is reckonable begins only when the Dáil is dissolved.
This is why parties and candidates have been spending hundreds of thousands of euro on advertising in recent weeks to beat the controls which will kick in once the election is called.
When election expenditure controls were first introduced, many politicians expressed reservations that, while creating a more level playing field between candidates and parties, these limits would put them at a disadvantage compared to other groups who wanted to spend money intervening in the political and electoral process. Reports of Seanad and Dáil debates on the legislation include contributions from Oireachtas members on all sides warning that, while their hands would be tied at the most intense stage of the electoral process, others outside the political process who wished to oppose a particular politician or policy could do so without restriction.
Among the concerns expressed was that trade unions, lobby groups or community organisations who wanted to target a party or candidate could run newspaper advertising or distribute literature against them during the campaign.
While such groups could spend thousands of euro doing this, the party or candidate would not have the capacity to respond because they would have already assigned their spending limit to postering and literature. Even if limiting such interventions was desirable, legal considerations touching on the constitutional right to freedom of expression make it difficult to prohibit such interventions by groups in the election at national or constituency level.
Subsequent legislation introduced a requirement that such groups - described in law as "third parties" - must register with the Standards in Public Office Commission before raising donations for, or spending monies on, this type of campaigning.
A cap was also placed on the amount of any individual donations groups could receive for political campaigning.
However, no limit was placed on the amounts they can either raise or spend during an election.
This week has seen the re-emergence of an even more harmful distortion of competition in the electoral process.
What politicians had not foreseen was that imposing controls on their own electoral expenditure would increase the extent to which a wealthy private citizen or a cash-rich commercial company could throw its weight around in the electoral process by using money to campaign against a party or candidate.
That is precisely what Ryanair is doing in the full-page advertisement it placed in some national newspapers this week. This advertisement depicts the Taoiseach with a Pinocchio nose claiming that he has broken promises. It is the latest in a series of advertisements directed at individual Government politicians and must have cost Ryanair a six-figure sum.
These Ryanair advertisements were superficially entertaining, but in the wider context of the election campaign, and of expenditure controls, they are disturbing. Ryanair can only have one of two possible objectives in spending so much money on advertising at this time. The most benign interpretation is that by placing this advertising Ryanair is simply using the topicality of the election and the profile of the Taoiseach to generate attention for itself. It may simply be that, like everything else Michael O'Leary or Ryanair does, the advertisements are all about putting bums on cheap airplane seats.
To that extent the advertisements are consistent with the low-cost marketing and public relations strategy the company has always adopted so effectively. These advertisements could be just another dimension to the marketing strategy which sees O'Leary in ludicrous costumes loudly attacking opponents or generally behaving like a poor man's Richard Branson to attract controversy and attention to himself and his airline.
(I am, of course, conscious that by discussing the advertisement I am, sadly, giving it more attention, but that should not scare commentators from addressing the wider significance of this issue.)
A more disturbing interpretation is that Ryanair and O'Leary are again seeking to intimidate politicians to advance Ryanair's narrow commercial interests.
Through this advertising Ryanair looks to influence political debate about air transport policy in the lead into the election. And, because of its wealth, Ryanair is in a better position to exert influence in this way than are others, such as unions, airport authorities or air passenger groups, who have as legitimate a right to be heard in this debate.
While Ryanair presents its arguments as being in the best interests of air passengers, the airline's primary focus is the financial interest of O'Leary and its other shareholders.
This is not the first or only way in which Ryanair has sought to influence the political process. Before legal caps on political donations were introduced, Ryanair was a large contributor to a number of political parties, particularly the Progressive Democrats. Public advertising is a more transparent intervention in politics than seeking access or influence through large donations or through the deployment of well-paid lobbyists, but that does not make it any less unhealthy.
These advertisements seek to shape the behaviour of politicians by letting them know that failure to do O'Leary's bidding leaves them open to full-page paid-for parodies in the national press. As such, they are damaging to the democratic process.