European Election

At least €423,000 spent on online advertising for political parties and candidates in lead-up to polling day

Sinn Féin spent €166,800 with Meta and Google, with Fine Gael’s online advertising costing €75,900 and Fianna Fáil spending €74,900 over three months

Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – and search giant Google have online tools that offer information on political advertising including expenditure. Photograph: Alan Betson

Cormac McQuinn
Sat Jun 8 2024 - 06:00

At least €423,000 was spent on online advertising for political parties and European election candidates in the lead-up to polling day.

Since March, Sinn Féin spent €166,800; Fine Gael spent €75,900 and Fianna Fáil spent €75,000 as part of the online battle for votes.

All three parties have strong fundraising operations and had healthy balance sheets with significant cash reserves at the end of 2022, according to the most recently published accounts.

In terms of the smaller parties and their candidates the Labour Party spent €36,300 on online advertising over the last three months; the Greens spent €28,500; the Social Democrats spent €22,070, Independent Ireland spent €10,400 and People Before Profit spent €8,127.

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Under Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) guidelines political parties and candidates must disclose details of all expenses incurred during the official “election period” for the European election – April 5th to June 7th.

Returns in relation to expenditure in the local elections – where the official “election period” is April 8th to June 7th – are made to the relevant local authorities.

Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – and search giant Google have online tools that offer information on political advertising including expenditure.

Sinn Féin has spent €102,600 with Meta since March 7th.

Some €14,000 was also spent with the company on the campaign for Midlands North-West candidate Chris MacManus and another €1,100 was spent on advertising for Ireland South candidate Senator Paul Gavan.

Sinn Féin has also spent €49,100 on Google Ads since March 5th.

Fine Gael has spent €20,700 on advertising on Meta platforms.

Further spending related to European Election candidates includes – Nina Carberry (€17,800); Maria Walsh (€12,100); Regina Doherty (€10,300); John Mullins (€8,700) and Seán Kelly (€6,300).

Meta’s Ad Library website also offers details on where people involved in operating the social media accounts are located.

Facebook pages for Ms Carberry, Ms Walsh, Ms Doherty and Mr Mullins all have a small number of people from India listed as well as people from Ireland and one person from Australia in the case of Ms Doherty.

Fine Gael previously criticised Sinn Féin over people based overseas operating their account.

A Fine Gael statement said: “A UK-based agency has been contracted to provide analytical reports on some of our European candidates’ overall social media metrics. The company has staff members based outside of the UK.”

Fianna Fáil’s spending with Meta includes €19,100 for ads running on its own accounts.

In terms of its European election candidates the spending comprised of Cynthia Ní Mhurchú (€18,700); Lisa Chambers (€11,200); Barry Andrews (€9,000); Barry Cowen (€7,900); Billy Kelleher (€5,100) and Niall Blaney (€3,900).

A Fianna Fáil spokeswoman said the party and its European candidates spent just over €75,000 on advertising across Facebook and Instagram between March 7th and June 4th.

She said “the amount for each candidate was a matter for each candidate to decide and final figure may be somewhat greater than the amount cited” and that “final and exact amounts for campaign spending will be confirmed to SIPO in due course.”

Independent Ireland spent €3,200 on advertising with Meta, much of it relating to Local Election candidates.

Spending on ads for Dublin European election candidate Niall Boylan came to €6,700 with another €500 for Midlands North-West candidate Ciarán Mullooly.

An Independent Ireland spokesman said: “We have had very limited budget for advertising as don’t have the budgets or funding of the larger parties.”

He added: “Niall Boylan’s campaign spend was the highest as social media marketing formed a key part of our strategy.”

Cormac McQuinn

Cormac McQuinn

Cormac McQuinn is a Political Correspondent at The Irish Times

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