Donations; gifts; and any benefits-in-kind will be always be open to abuse and the mere fact of their existence is reason enough to ban them completely.

Like it or not, the Exchequer is the only alternative method of cash funding. After all, the Government has no income. Any money they receive is unearned.

As stated by Keith, RTE is obliged to afford time to all parties.
Surely this facility could be extended, as a pre-condition to all owners of Broadcast Licences – TV3; TG4; East Coast radio; Talk 106 etc…

There is likely to be a grey area concerning IRA/Sinn Fein. Their election war chest has been built up largely from the proceeds of Crime.
One can only wonder if FF have the will to challenge this source of “income”.
Both Aherns, Dermot & Bertie, have stated that they would have no problem entering into a future coalition with the IRA & their political mouthpieces.

HOWEVER THE PROBLEM CAN ONLY BE RESOLVED BY AN IMMEDIATE, TOTAL BAN.

Thereafter, the various parties might submit suggestions for alternative funding and, in particular, provide a statement of what they consider necessary to prosecute an effective campaign, properly detailed & costed.

Just for the record, the Green Party doesn’t accept corporate donations at all.

However, I dont agree that posters, leaflets etc should be banned, for the simple reason of freedom of speech. A dynamic and innovative party shoudn’t be stultified by the government telling them how to campaign.

I think that if all donations are banned, the only rational way to fund campaigns is by the taxpayer. Parties get an amount proportional to their support in the previous election. The money goes into a transparent account, and any election spending from any source becomes a criminal offence.

New independents and parties can spend their own money in their first election, and get it refunded if they reach a threshold, as now.

If taxpayers don’t want to pay for elections, they should consider whether it is better that politicians answer to them, or to the tent at the Galway Races.

I think that maybe a ban on companies bidding for and getting state contracts if they have given donations to the parties in government preceeding an election and then for the term that those parties are in Government.

We would then see it big business gives political donations to help the the political process or just themselves.

Seeing as Cian decided to reuse the conference registration page for registering for Top Chumps, something I wasn’t expecting at all, I might go back and rework it so it’s not tied to conference registration and so that any fields beside name and email address are custom fields. It also seems like time to work out a nice, flexible structure for the conference pages so less work is needed to maintain and archive them.

Ok, maybe not, but I assume that the funds that would otherwise come from fundraising (which, I’m afraid, is exactly how FG got all that money) would, instead, come from the Exchequer, right?

One downside of your scheme is that it might make the affair awfully dull. Does this extend to things like party political broadcasts and the like too? I guess websites and other such forms of advertising would be exempt because, let’s face it, all the parties have equally awful websites. And what about party membership fees? Do they count as donations?

I’m not just being facetious here, I’m really wondering if these things count.

And on a completely separate subject, I really have to find a way to fix the navigation tabs along the top…