Sinn Féin Leader Mary Lou McDonald has denied the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) is conducting an investigation into her party’s financial statements and electoral returns, but has admitted that the party has been questioned by Sipo over its financial declarations.
She has also asserted that all of Sinn Féin’s money is “fully accounted for”.
Last week The Irish Times reported that Sipo was investigating complaints into a series of discrepancies, contradictions and apparent mistakes in the party’s financial statements, especially surrounding the European Elections in 2019.
Apparent contradictions
The discrepancies, which amount in some cases to hundreds of thousands of euros, have been identified through detailed examinations of statutory filings to the commission in recent years.
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Central to the complaints are apparent contradictions between the audited accounts that the party must submit every year, and the election spending returns.
“There no Sipo investigation into Sinn Féin,” said Ms McDonald. “What we have here is a series of questions that were put by a Fine Gael activist, a letter to Sinn Féin on foot of that, and answers back from Sinn Féin back to Sipo in that regard.”
Ms McDonald said that some of the reporting on this has been inaccurate. She referred to the issue of a contradiction between the party’s annual accounts and the electoral returns for the European Elections in 2019.
“There are different numbers on the annual accounts and electoral returns. But if you go and examine this for every other political party, there are differences there too. The reason for that is because there are different reporting requirements in the annual accounts [compared to] electoral returns.
“I can tell you all of our money is fully accounted for. Sipo has all of our material. It has put questions to us. We have answered them. We will always co-operate fully with Sipo as a regulating body.”
She said that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s call for the Dáil to discuss anomalies in the Sinn Féin account was “political theatre”.
Varadkar critique
On Tuesday, Mr Varadkar said that the funds mentioned were large sums of money, amounting to hundreds of thousands of euro. “We have had tribunals for less. This could become a big political issue,” he told the Dáil.
However, Ms McDonald rejected his call for it to be debated. “If that’s how he wishes to carry himself as leader of the Government. It’s political theatre. I am more than happy to swap seats with Leo Varadkar and if he wishes me to present myself and be held fully accountable to the Dáil, I am more than happy, ambitious and willing to do that, as a member of government or perhaps even leading government at some point.”
If the complaints made to Sipo were to be upheld, Sinn Féin would face the prospect of submitting revised accounts and spending declarations — an outcome which would be severely embarrassing following its recent criticisms of Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe.
