The Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 required the Commission to prepare and publish guidelines for the purpose of providing practical guidance to political parties with respect to keeping proper books of account and preparing an annual statement of accounts and auditor’s report. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government consented, on 1 December 2014, to the Commission publishing its guidelines for political party accounts. The guidelines were then published by the Commission.
In accordance with Section 86(2) of the Act the first audited accounts that political parties will be required to submit to the Commission will be in respect of the year 2015. Such accounts must be presented no later than June 2016.
Each political party was required to furnish a Donation Statement to the Standards Commission by 31 March 2015. Donations received by a political party exceeding an aggregate value of €1,500 are required to be disclosed. The maximum value of donations which a political party can accept from the same person in the same calendar year is €2,500. Donations received from the same donor in the same calendar year must be aggregated for the purposes of observing the disclosure and maximum acceptance limits. The total value of donations disclosed by parties during 2014 was €166,392. Details of the donations disclosed by political parties in respect of 2014 are available in a report which is available on the Commission’s website.
Under section 25 of the Electoral Act 1997, it is an offence for the appropriate officer of a political party to fail to furnish a Donation Statement/Statutory Declaration and Certificate of Monetary Donations/Statutory Declaration to the Standards Commission by the specified date. The deadline for furnishing the required documentation was 31 March 2015. The Standards Commission referred a file to the Gardaí on 1 May 2015 on Direct Democracy Ireland’s failure to comply with the statutory requirements.
A person who was a TD, Senator or MEP during 2014 was required to furnish a donation statement/certificate of monetary donations/statutory declaration to the Standards Commission by 31 January 2015. Donations received during 2014 which exceeded a value of €600 were required to be disclosed. Donations from the same person in the same year must be aggregated for the purposes of observing the disclosure threshold and the maximum acceptance limit (€1,000).
The report is available on the Commission’s website.
Section 24(1A) of the Electoral Act provides that an individual must furnish a Donation Statement/Statutory Declaration to the Standards Commission, if he/she, in a particular year, makes donations exceeding €1,500 in aggregate value to two or more persons who were members of the same political party when the donations were made, or to a political party, and to one or more of its members. The Donation Statement/Statutory Declaration, must give details of the donations and the persons to whom they were made and must be furnished by 31 January of the following year.
If a donor does not intend to comply with this requirement and a Member or candidate at an election is aware of this, he/she is prohibited from accepting a donation from that individual. If such a donation is received, the Standards Commission must be notified within 14 days and the donation or its value remitted to the Standards Commission.
Seven Donation Statements from individual donors with a total value of €56,520 were received in respect of 2014.
Details of the donations disclosed by individual donors in respect of 2014 are available in a report which is available on the Commission’s website.
From 1 January 2013, an organisation which receives a donation in excess of €100 in value is considered to be a third party and must register with the Standards Commission. It is subject to the same rules about acceptance of donations as political parties. A donation is a contribution given for political purposes.
A third party, must, by 31 March each year, furnish the Standards Commission with:
a Certificate of Monetary Donations/Statutory Declaration (CMD) confirming that all donations were lodged to that account and that payments from the account were used for political purposes, and a bank statement from the financial institution where its political donations account is held.
The up to date figures on the number of organisations contacted, those registered and those organisations that have declared that they are not required to register can be seen on the Commission’s website.
A corporate donor is defined as including: a body corporate, an unincorporated body of persons or a trust which makes a donation. A body corporate and any subsidiary thereof are deemed to be one person. In the case of a Corporate Donor, a donation in excess of the value of €200 cannot be accepted unless the Corporate Donor is registered in the Register of Corporate Donors (maintained by the Commission) and a statement (i.e., a donation statement) is made on behalf of the Corporate Donor and furnished with the donation to the donee confirming that the making of the donation was approved by the Corporate Donor. The statement must be accompanied by a statutory declaration that to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person concerned, the statement is correct in every material respect and that the person has taken all reasonable action in order to satisfy him/herself as to the accuracy of the statement.
In January 2013 the Commission published Guidelines relating to the register of Corporate Donors which will be maintained by the Commission. Corporate donors who wish to make a donation for political purposes in excess of €200 must register with the Commission and furnish a statement to the recipient of a donation confirming that the donation has been approved by the members, shareholders or trustees of the corporate donor concerned.
During 2014 only four corporate donors registered with the Commission – INTO, SIPTU, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) and UNITE. In November 2014 the Commission wrote to those registered corporate donors that had registered in respect of 2014, reminding them of the necessity for them to renew their registration as corporate donors, if they were still corporate donors.
SIPTU registered with the Standards Commission as a corporate donor for 2015 on 14 November 2014. UNITE the Union was registered as a corporate donor from 3 March 2015.
Total expenditure disclosed by election agents and national agents at the European Parliament Election amounted to €2,882,329. The total donations disclosed amounted to €23,649. The spending limit per candidate in all constituencies was €230,000.
A total of €974,121 was paid by the Exchequer to twenty six candidates who qualified for a reimbursement of election expenses. Twenty five candidates qualified for the maximum reimbursement of €38,092.
Files in respect of three candidates (Mr. Tom Darcy, Direct Democray Ireland; Mr. Mark Fitzsimmons, Non-Party and Mr. Ben Gilroy, Direct Democracy Ireland) were referred on 25 August 2014 to the Gardaí for failing to furnish the Commission with the required statutory documentation by 18 July 2014.
Mr. Gilroy subsequently furnished the required statutory documentation on 2 March 2015. The Commission has received no further correspondence from either Mr Darcy or Mr. Fitzsimmons. The Report on the European Parliament election is available on the Commission website.
Total expenditure disclosed by election agents and national agents at the Dublin West and Longford-Westmeath bye-elections amounted to €275,867. The total donations disclosed amounted to €11,690. The spending limit per candidate in both constituencies was €37,650.
A total of €109,903 was paid by the Exchequer to fourteen candidates who qualified for a reimbursement of election expenses. Eleven candidates qualified for the maximum reimbursement of €8,700.
A file in respect of one candidate (Mr. Donal Jackson) was referred on 25 August 2014 to the Gardaí for failing to furnish the Commission with the required statutory documentation by 18 July 2014. Mr Jackson subsequently satisfactorily furnished the required statutory documentation on 4 December 2014.
The report on the Dublin West and Longford-Westmeath bye elections is available on the Commission’s website.
Total expenditure disclosed by election agents and national agents at the Dublin South-West and Roscommon-South Leitrim bye-elections amounted to €287,577. The total donations disclosed amounted to €3,000. The spending limit per candidate in the Dublin South-West constituency was €37,650 and the spending limit per candidate in the Roscommon-South Leitrim constituency was €30,150.
A total of €104,400 was paid by the Exchequer to twelve candidates who qualified for a reimbursement of election expenses, each of whom qualified for the maximum reimbursement of €8,700.
A file in respect of one candidate (Mr. Gerry O’Boyle) was referred on 19 January 2015 to the Gardaí for failing to furnish the Commission with the required statutory documentation by 5 December 2014.
Mr O’Boyle subsequently furnished the required statutory documentation to the Commission on 17 April 2015. The report on the Dublin South-West and Roscommon-South Leitrim bye elections is availible on the Commission’s website.
In order to qualify for funding under the Electoral Acts, a political party must be included in the Register of Political Parties and must have obtained at least 2% of the first preference votes at the last Dáil general election. Funding was paid to four qualified parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and The Labour Party) during 2014 on the basis of the results of the 25 February 2011 general election.
Each qualified political party is paid a basic flat rate amount of €126,974 annually. In addition, each qualified political party is also entitled to a share of an annual sum which was originally set at €3m and which increases in line with general pay increases in the civil service. The Electoral (Amendment)(Political Funding) Act 2012 introduced a new requirement that the annual sum may also decrease in line with general pay reductions in the civil service. There were no increases or decreases applied to the fund in 2014.
The fund stood at €4,948,202 at 31 December 2014. This sum plus the flat rate amount for each qualifying political party (€126,974) above will be available for distribution in 2015. The share of the fund payable to a qualified political party is determined by expressing the first preference votes of the qualified party as a percentage of the total first preference votes received by all qualified political parties. The parties received a total of €5.5 million in 2014.
The funding may not be used for electoral or referendum purposes.
The Commission is conscious of the very general nature of the legislation and of guidelines published by the Commission in this regard. The Act does not make any reference to whether funding is to be applied for capital or current purposes, and does not specify the time period to which the funding relates. The Commission is of the view that there is a need for greater clarity in these matters.
A report on the exchequer funding received in 2014 by political parties is available on the Commission’s website.
The payment of an annual allowance (which was known as the Party Leaders Allowance) to one or more leaders of parliamentary parties (in relation to expenses arising from the parliamentary activities, including research, of the party) has been provided for and regulated in a succession of Acts beginning with the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices Act 1938. Party leaders have, since 2001, been required to furnish to the Commission an annual statement of expenditure from the allowance.
A similar allowance became payable to independent members of the Dáil and Seanad under the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act 2001. Independent members were not required to furnish an annual statement of expenditure.
The Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act 2014 reduced the level of payments and for the first time provided that independent members are now required to furnish to the Commission an annual statement of expenditure. The allowance is now known as the Parliamentary Activities Allowance (PAA). The Act also provides that the allowance shall not be subject to income tax.
The relevant provisions of the 2014 Act came into operation on 1 July 2014. With effect from that date, any payment of the PAA received by an independent member/parliamentary party leader is subject to the provisions of the legislation.
A qualifying party is defined in the Act as a political party, registered in the Register of Political Parties, which contested the last preceding general election or any subsequent bye-elections and which had at least one member elected to Dáil Éireann or elected or nominated to Seanad Éireann. The parliamentary leaders of seven political parties (Anti-Austerity Alliance, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, People before Profit Alliance, Sinn Féin, Stop the Water Tax - Socialist Party and The Labour Party) qualified to receive the allowance. The parties received a total of €7,117,340 in 2014.
The funding may not be used for electoral or referendum purposes.
Qualified political parties must furnish to the Standards Commission Statements of Expenditure of the funding received.
Non-party members of Dáil and Seanad Éireann also receive funding under the Parliamentary Activities Allowance legislation. The total paid to non-party members was €812,989 (€563,859 to non-party members of the Dáil and €249,130 to non-party members of the Seanad).
A report on the funding received in 2014 by parliamentary party leaders/independent members is available on the Commission’s website.
As highlighted in previous Annual Reports, the Standards Commission continues to experience difficulties in supervising the provisions of the legislation relating to accounting units.
It is an offence for the responsible person of an accounting unit to fail to furnish, by 31 March each year, a Certificate of Monetary Donations and Bank Statement to the Standards Commission. Only a small percentage of accounting units complied with their statutory requirements to furnish the required documentation to the Standards Commission by 31 March 2015.
The report on Political Party Donations 2014 contains details of the returns made by accounting units and is available on the Commission’s website.
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