Party membership costs

dahamsta

I applied to become a member of a certain political party and the bumph and application form came in an Oireachtas Éireann postage-paid envelope. I'm surprised by this, I would have thought membership matters would have to be paid for by the party directly? Are there rules about this sort of thing, and if so, where are they?

adam

star gazer

I don't know about rules, but it would appear that it's the done thing. Ministers had to put the value of their offices' contribution to the last six weeks of the 2002 general election campaign onto their election expenses this amounted to thousands of euros. I don't think they had to pay for it and if they could do it then there's no reason to think they wouldn't be using their state-sponsored resources throughout the dail term. TDs handle submissions and complaints from their constituents it's their job, but one could ask at what point are they helping out constituents and at what pont are they electioneering.
Clearly the membership is a party matter and there should be strict rules about state-sponsored office resources. Will that ever really happen....:)nope

Victor

Originally posted by star gazer
TDs handle submissions and complaints from their constituents it's their job, but one could ask at what point are they helping out constituents and at what pont are they electioneering.

There is an interesting dialogue on this in "Yes, Minister" with Gerard(? - Sir Humphrey's sidekick) refusing to post letters to constituents, but will to journalists.

dahamsta

I'll lodge a complaint. I need to complain about something else before I sign on the dotted anyway. Thanks guys.

adam

star gazer

originally posted by Victor
There is an interesting dialogue on this in "Yes, Minister" with Gerard(? - Sir Humphrey's sidekick) refusing to post letters to constituents, but will to journalists.

Bernard, not gerard. it was about christmas cards wasn't it? It's always shades of grey, never black and white the way things can be 'spun'.

sceptre

Originally posted by Victor
Gerard(? - Sir Humphrey's sidekick)

Bernard.

The episode is "Party Games" IIRC. Last ep of YM or first of YPM (it was a Christmas special after one had ended and before the other began, on the YM DVD but in the YPM book) (edit: like star gazer said, it was about Christmas cards)


I'd be a little miffed too. Any time I've officially contacted a TD in their official capacity as a TD I've received a reply in a Dail envelope. That's fair enough. If I unofficially contacted a TD and they chose to officially respond to me in their capacity as a TD I'd expect the same. Where I'd get miffed is if I unofficially contacted someone who happened to be a TD in a matter that was nothing whatever to do with their being a TD (eg my killing their dog or something) and they chose to reply officially or unofficially using State resources and allowances. Joining a political party is nothing to do with anyone being a TD and hence any reply, whether official or unofficial, should be made using their own resources rather than mine as a taxpayer. It's a question of hats, I suppose. Or faces - can't wear two hats without being two-faced.
(yes, I love that show)

Either way, it's either a misuse of public resources or corruption, however minor. The fact that every party activist seems to have a supply of the envelopes is neither here nor there. A party with any copon would recognise that it doesn't give, er, smart people the best view of the honesty within.

It'd be pretty funny if you sent your complaint in an Oireachtas envelope though:)

bonkey

Originally posted by dahamsta
I'll lodge a complaint. I need to complain about something else before I sign on the dotted anyway.

Yeah - play the "discrimination against any party which does not have a member in the Oireachtas" card

jc

dahamsta

I realise that this is just a tiny little single-celled amoeba on the oversized hippo that is politics, but it bugs me nonetheless. It seems that as a prerequisite to joining a political party, you have to throw your complete ethical personality out of the window and conform to a whole new body of ethics, drawn up over centuries to make people feel good about the mischief and favour-swapping that is modern politics. I'm not sure I want to do that. Perhaps the political landscape will be better for it.

In order, oldest to newest....

28 January

I received the membership form last week, thanks. I just have a couple of questions before I sign on the dotted:

- On the membership form, ?10 has been written over with ?15, however it's still ?10 on the direct debit form and the website, and I can't find any mention of a hike in membership fees on the website. I'm not bothered about the money, I'm just curious about this.

- The membership form arrived in a prepaid Oireachtas envelope. Shouldn't party affairs like membership be paid for out of party funds rather than taxes? Is this party policy or just a mistake?

25 February

Can I please get answers to the questions I asked below on the 28th of January?

03 March

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Local election preparations are keeping a lot of us away from our desks.

The direct debit form on the web-site needs to be updated - the membership if €15 a year, €10 for over 65s.

We have a policy for use of Oireachtas envelops which allows them to be used for building party capacity, which is well within the remit of the "parliamentary duties" of the Labour TDs to whom they are issued. We don't issue them to members for return of material etc.

In fact the government removed all restrictions on the use of Oireachtas envelopes before the local election and they can be used for any purpose the TD sees fit, we still maintain our more restrictive policy.

04 March

Thanks for your reply. I'm afraid I'm very disappointed with your answers. It would take your webmaster a couple of minutes to update the website, why wasn't it done? And you've acknowledged my complaint and it still hasn't been changed, why not? As to your "sure they all do it" excuse for the Oireachtas envelopes, that's the kind of answer I would expect from Fianna Fáil. I don't pay taxes so political parties can build party capacity, that's what political donations are for.

I had expected better from the Labour Party to be honest. I wasn't really looking for excuses, I was expecting something to be done.

04 March

I don’t think my answer to your Oireachtas envelope question was “that they all do it”. I pointed out that there was no legislation now governing the use of envelopes. You pay your taxes for, among many other things, that parliamentarians get envelops to use to carry out their role. In the Labour party we have looked at this seriously and have set out our own rules on good practice, we consider that part of a Labour Parliamentarians role is to help build the party they were elected to represent and to communicate with the members of the party who helped them get elected.

Nor did I offer you “excuses”, I offered explanations of a small party trying to make an impact in a world where other parties are massively better financed, of the issues which our staff have to deal with at the present correcting the figure on the web-page has not the highest priority. The web master is building a new web site for the elections which will be launched in April, correcting the error on that page is on his list of things to do but there is a matter of priorities and capacity.

I am sorry for your disappointment.

16 March

My apologies if I seem a bit harsh Mike, I'm simply of the view that Oireachtas envelopes should be used for Oireachtas business, and recruitment is most certainly not Oireachtas business. It's party business, that should be addressed with party funds. The lack of legislation has no bearing, it should be crystal clear that using taxpayer funds for this purpose is not ethical. If the party is as poorly financed as you suggest, perhaps the membership fee should be raised even higher. I don't know many people these days that would put a price of €15 on democracy.

As to the website, I'm a web developer and in all honesty I'd be shocked if it took more than a minute to update the site with the new membership fee. The site obviously uses a content management system, it should take even less than that. I see it has been updated now though, so thanks for that.

Like I said, I apologise if I seem overly-emotional, but I genuinely did expect more of the Labour Party. If the Labour Party can't understand the ethical impropriety of using Oireachtas envelopes for party business, I'm not sure anyone in politics can. I think perhaps I was a bit naive about what I could achieve by joining a political party.

Johnmb

....we consider that part of a Labour Parliamentarians role is to help build the party they were elected to represent....

Call me naive if you must, but I always thought that when I voted in a Dáil election, I was voting for someone to represent me in the Dáil, not to represent the party that they belong to.

daveirl

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