Sinn Féin has sought advice from State watchdog the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) on whether it declared spending during the local and European election campaigns correctly.
It comes after Sinn Féin declared just €7,580 in spending by party headquarters during the local election.
The spending was queried by Dublin City Council (DCC), the body which oversees the returns by political parties for their national spending in local elections, as “disproportionately low” compared with the other large parties.
Correspondence from a DCC official to Sinn Féin said he understood that Sinn Féin had run 335 candidates in the local election, “making it the second-largest party in the State”. He noted its return identified only “a small number of candidates that benefited from national agent expenditure”.
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Fianna Fáil’s “national agent” statement to DCC declared just under €290,000 in local election spending and Fine Gael headquarters disclosed almost €206,000.
Subsequent correspondence from a Sinn Féin official to the council said the election expenses statement it had submitted “is a true and accurate record of our national spend”.
It added that Sinn Féin’s statement “only covers expenses met by our head office and does not include the amounts spent at local level on local candidates”.
Political parties have made separate declarations of their national spending on the European election to Sipo.
Fine Gael declared spending of about €711,000 in that election; Fianna Fáil declared more than €700,000 and Sinn Féin declared about €430,000.
The Irish Independent reported the fact DCC had queried the difference in the spend between Sinn Féin headquarters and the national spends by the other large parties earlier this week.
The Irish Times asked Sinn Féin if it stood over the €7,580 figure it declared for its national spending in its local election return to DCC.
A Sinn Féin statement said: “In response to your query we have sought advice from Sipo on whether our declared election expenditure has been allocated correctly across all of the election campaigns. When we receive a response we will revert back to you on this matter.”
It comes as new figures show the party’s online spending has significantly decreased over the course of the general election campaign.
According to information compiled by Liz Carolan, who works on democracy and technology issues, Sinn Féin’s spending on election ads on both Meta and Google has now substantially fallen below that of other major political parties.
Sinn Féin spent €74,300 in the year to October 31st on Google ads, but has spent just €200 on ads since November 1st, according to the Google ad archive. By comparison, Fine Gael has spent €13,200 since November 1st.
On Meta, in the first two weeks of November, Fine Gael spent €87,577 while Fianna Fáil spent €47,902. Sinn Féin spent just €17,040.
“If we compare what parties spent in the first two weeks of October, pre-election, to the first two weeks of November, most parties are spending at least 10 times as much. In Fine Gael’s case this is 16 times as much. Yet Sinn Féin are spending one-third less,” Ms Carolan said.
“Sinn Féin’s party accounts show they were in a strong cash position coming into 2024, but that appears to be made up of State funds which cannot be used in campaigning. Having run several campaigns this year, and with a drop in membership and fundraising revenue last year recorded in their party accounts, it is unclear what resources the party has to mount a substantial digital campaign. This is most stark when compared to Fine Gael’s spending and fundraising and raises questions about the role of money in Irish politics.”
According to Sinn Féin’s annual accounts which were filed with Sipo, revenue from party member subscriptions is now at its lowest point since 2016, at €67,812 in 2023.
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