When it comes to financing elections, it pays to be a property owner, rather than a renter. Land registry records show that Fine Gael remortgaged its headquarters at 51 Upper Mount Street last September with Bank of Ireland to raise money for its election war chest.
The party previously did the same thing in 2011, reportedly raising about €2.5 million ahead of that year’s general election. This time it raised €1.5 million, it said this weekend.
While we have to wait for the Standards in Public Office (Sipo) to tell us how much each party spent on the recent European, local and general elections, we already know because of EU digital transparency rules that Fine Gael spent the most in the run-up to the general election with the various social-media giants.
All parties and candidates spent about €870,000 combined, with Simon Harris’s party accounting for about €280,000 of the total, including more than €100,000 in the final two days of the campaign.
The next highest spender was Fianna Fáil, which handed over €170,000 to Zuckerberg, Musk et al over the course of the campaign.
Fianna Fáil doesn’t have a blue-chip office to remortgage to raise funds for the glut of elections we’ve had in recent months, not to mention a presidential election to come before the end of the year.
In 2001 it had to sell its base of 70 years on Upper Mount Street to clear a party debt of €1 million to financial institutions.
Since then it has been renting another office at 65-66 Lower Mount Street, paying “dead money” to its landlord, the National Maternity Hospital.
Woes of Tralee
Beneath the fake tan and tiaras, the Rose of Tralee is a hot mess – at least financially. Records released under the Freedom of Information Act show the organisers of the pageant are keeping their outfit together with the equivalent of a safety pin.
Last year Anthony O’Gara, the festival’s managing director, asked Kerry County Council to secure the future of the pageant by becoming its exclusive lead sponsor.
O’Gara said that every year the festival’s goodwill was “divided among competing commercial interests that have little or no connection to Kerry – our proposition is that we should change that”.
The council was offered a judge on the jury, the council’s brand on the rose’s sashes and more events taking place in Kerry.
But instead of becoming its lead sponsor, the council contributed only €50,000 directly to the festival last year, down from the €120,000 it has traditionally given. It spent the balance on an accompanying street carnival in Tralee, which used to be paid for by the festival.
The records released show O’Gara pulled out of hosting the street festival in 2023, saying he had to focus on securing the “core elements” of the annual pageant. Also gone since 2022 is the Rose Ball, a dinner dance featuring the roses and their escorts, which O’Gara said lost more than €100,000 in its last year.
In 2023 the festival lost €72,321, according to its most recent accounts, brining its total liabilities to €320,984. It’s also facing two separate legal actions by American shareholder Richard Henggeler, who wants a loan made by him to the festival to be repaid immediately.
Yet O’Gara remains confident this year’s event will come up smelling of roses. This weekend he said the pageant “returned a small profit last year and we are confident that the festival will continue to flourish”.
The Wanderers return to stalemate
Businessman Dermot Desmond gave his blessing to plans for a new clubhouse at Wanderers FC on Merrion Road when the rugby club applied for planning permission for a swanky new two-storey pavilion with a bar, gym, changing rooms and a physio room four years ago.
Desmond said the upgrade would “benefit the entire community”.
“It is great to have clubs like Old Belvedere RFC and Wanderers – the second-oldest rugby club in Ireland – in such a residential area, providing excellent playing fields for senior, junior and underage teams,” he said in a letter supporting the club’s application.
Dublin City Council approved the plans but the tricky conversion has been on hold since. The council asked Wanderers for a €180,000 contribution towards local infrastructure. Wanderers argued it should be exempt given it is a not-for-profit organisation.
Last week An Bord Pleanála finally sided with the council, ruling that Wanderers had failed to prove it would not “accrue some profit or gain” from the enhanced facilities.
If only Wanderers knew a sympathetic billionaire.
Rugby publicans must stick to the code
Former rugby players Jamie Heaslip, Seán O’Brien, and brothers Rob and Dave Kearney have been expanding their pub empire with businessman Noel Anderson.
Last year, for €5.5 million, they added McSorley’s in Ranelagh to their other Dublin watering holes: Lemon & Duke, The Bridge 1859, The Blackrock and Little Lemon.
They have christened their pub chain Grand Slam Bars, sticking in a trademark for the name late last year. Unfortunately for the guys, Perry Ellis International, a clothing company that specialises in golf and tennis wear, cried foul, saying they were breaching its European trademark for the name “grand slam”.
Anderson said this weekend an agreement had been reached with the company. The pub chain can use the phrase Grand Slam Bars and even sell merchandise – as long as they stick to rugby-themed clobber.
Could inclusion lead to exclusion?
Last week we reported how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took aim at USAid funding a concert by Other Voices at the US ambassador’s residence in Ireland in 2022 called Dignity: Towards a More Equitable Future, which we mistakenly said was also funded by Rethink Ireland.
Word reaches us that then Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman attended a separate event before the concert which included panel discussions on topics such as barriers to inclusion. While that event was organised by Rethink Ireland, it was funded by a €32,000 grant from the US embassy.
Let’s hope it’s not on the pugnacious Leavitt’s radar.
The Seanad’s abuzz
The Seanad has had its fair share of drones over the years. Now it has its first beekeeper. Fine Gael’s PJ Murphy, elected to the Seanad’s Agricultural panel, runs Ardrahan Apiary in Co Galway, which has more than 70 hives.
Murphy, who is also a farmer, produces all kinds of natural honey, including soft set ivy honey made using nectar from the flowers of the ivy plant.
A previous member of the Seanad, Vincent P Martin, once suggested setting up a beehive on Leinster Lawn. If it happens in this Seanad term, they have the very man for the job.
