Press release

Time to clean up politics says Friends of the Earth

5 September 2013

Friends of the Earth's Northern Ireland Director today said the upcoming start of the new Parliamentary session was an opportunity to clean up politics. The campaigning group handed over 4,500 postcards signed by the public calling on the Secretary of State to reveal who funds Northern Ireland's political parties [1]. James Orr said:

"It's time to sweep away the secrecy, rumours, and mistrust. The Secretary of State has the power to reveal where Northern Ireland's political parties get their funds. She should listen to the people of Northern Ireland, not the parties trying to conceal the identities of their donors. What do they have to hide? The people of Northern Ireland would like to know. [2]"

Mr Orr said the two largest parties in the Executive needed to stand up for their principles:

"The DUP has claimed it supports the principle of transparency. The Red Sky affair, however, raises serious questions about the party's dealings with business. The party needs to come clean to reassure the electorate that it has the public interest at heart."

Mr Orr continued:

"Sinn Féin has repeatedly stated it believes there should be full transparency, and claims it publishes the names of its donors. It does no such thing [3]. If it expects to gain people's trust Sinn Féin must act on its rhetoric and publish the names of its donors immediately. To do otherwise is to play games with the electorate."

Political donor transparency is just one of a number of attacks on Northern Ireland's fragile democracy:

"Democracy is dying in Northern Ireland. It is being killed by donor secrecy, limitations on people's right to challenge Government decisions [4], the fear of legal action for reasonable speculation about party relationships [5], the continued abuse of Assembly procedures designed to prevent sectarian carve-ups [6], and the Government's plans to limit the rights of lobbying groups [7]. If democracy is to survive we all have to stand up and fight for what is important - the right to information, the right to participation, and the right to justice." 

Notes

[1] The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013 is currently proceeding through the House of Commons. The Bill proposes to indefinitely continue the anonymity of donors to Northern Ireland's political parties. A full briefing can be found here

[2] Surveys and opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the electorate want transparency. The DUP, UUP, and SDLP have consistently argued against revealing the names of their donors. Only the Alliance Party and the Green Party publish the names of their donors.

[3] Oral evidence from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee inquiry into The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013, 26 February 2013:

Q354 Nigel Mills: So, you publish already every donation over a certain amount?

Mr McCartney: Yes.

Q355 Nigel Mills: Is that required in the Republic of Ireland? Is that where you publish it, or is it published on your website here as well?

Mr McCartney: It is published on our website. The party took a decision to do that, because we believe that, if the process is to be open and transparent, you should show a lead by doing that.

Nigel Mills: If I were to look at that, I could see how much each individual donated and where in the world they are. Is that what you publish?

Mr McCartney: Yes.

[4] An amendment to the Planning Bill 2013, tabled by Peter Weir and Cathal Boylan, would restricted the grounds on which people can seek a judicial review (JR) of planning decisions, and reduces the time period in which JRs can be taken from 12 weeks to 6 weeks.

[5] The previous Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, decided to opt out of the UK Government's plans to reform the Defamation Act.

[6] A Petition of Concern is an Assembly mechanism that triggers a cross-community vote when an issue that comes before the Assembly is of concern for one community or the other. Petitions of Concern are repeatedly misused to frustrate the will of the Assembly when no cross-community concern exists.

[7] The Coalition's new Lobbying Bill will amount to a gagging order on campaigners in the year prior to elections.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Limited