Pre-Election

Research information surrounding political parties in Ireland

As a part time job, I am a researcher for a media company based within Ireland. Before the general election I was tasked with uncovering information about the parties involved so that it could be used as part of a news segment surrounding the general election.

Election 2020

After casting the net far and wide, I was intrigued by some of my findings. The two topics I was asked to research were Funding and Ones to watch. I’ll just get straight down to business and start with funding.

Funding

Last year, Political Parties received €5.9m in State funding. It seems that political parties are almost completely reliant on state funding. This is where majority of their income comes from. There were eight political parties in total that qualified for the Exchequer funding.  

Fianna Gael received the most with €1,663,000 with Fianna Fail not far behind with €1,593,000.

Renua was paid €366,000 in state payments last year. This party has no TDs, senators or councillors, but yet managed to take this giant lumpsum. This €366,000 actually costs taxpayers more than €1000 a day.

The money which is received through the Exchequer funding cannot be used for electoral or referendum purposes. The money earned may not be used directly in electoral campaigns, but it can and is being used to prepare for elections.

The funds are used to maintain the political parties activities and grow the party going forward according to Renua treasurer Michael Farrington. This is similar to a country saying they will not spend money on a war, they are simply just using the money to build their army. It seems like a typical political way of spending money.

Party leaders and independent members can also receive funding under the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act 2014. According to Gov.ie: “The Parliamentary Activities Allowance (formerly known as the Party Leader’s Allowance) is a payment to a party leader made in relation to expenses arising from parliamentary activities, including research.

Payments may also be made to an elected member of Dáil or Seanad Éireann who isn’t a member of a qualifying party (e.g. an independent member).”

This amounts to €2.4m for Fianna Fail; €2m for Fine Gael; €1.5m for Sinn Féin; €618,000 for the Labour Party; €170,000 for the Green Party and €386,000 for Solidarity-People Before Profit.Each party declares its expenditures for the year to show where the funds are being spent.

Last year Fianna Fail spent almost €1,300,000 on personal costs according to SIPO. Parties are also allowed to carry money forward to the following year for spending. The amount carried forward from each party can be seen in the chart above.

Party	Total Donations Disclosed €
Fianna Fail	2,500
Fine Gael	81,899
Labour Party	22,150
Sinn Fein	48,470
Workers and Unemployed Action	4,800
Total	159,819

• The total value of donations disclosed by political parties during 2018 was €159,819. This is separate to the donations made to Tds, senators and MEPs. In 2018 there were only a small number of donations made to TDs, senators and MEPs. In 2016 these numbers were significantly higher and there were multiple donations for each party. The full list of personal donors from 2016 can be found here.

• In 2016 a total of €72,969.12 was donated to TDS as opposed to just €6,480 in 2018. This would be because in 2016 the general election was taking place. Almost €82,000 euro was donated to Fine Gael in 2018. Majority of donations to Fine Gael came from its own TDs and MEPs.

• Donations ranged from €1,520 – €2,296 with Josepha Maddigan donating the highest amount.

• There are numerous personal donors who donated to a number of senators, TDs or MEPs in the Fine Gael party. One of the people who has donated numerous times in 2018 is Brendan Heneghan. Brendan is a retired corporate lawyer who lives in the Terenure area. 

• For Fianna Fail a donation came from Denis Mee for €2,500. Denis was a long-time supporter and is now deceased.

• Labour party ranged between €1,600 – €2,400 with a number of TDs contributing €2,400 including Alan Kelly. 

• Personal donors to TDs from 2018 include Declan Kelly and Michael Madden, with a combined amount of €4,480. Kelly is the CEO of Teneo which is an international consulting company. He is based in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, while Madden is based in New York. Madden is a chairman in Teneo also which shows him and Kelly not only share similar careers, but also similar political views.

• Sinn Fein ranged between €1,664 – €2,750. Dessie Ellis was responsible for the €2750 donation, but was refunded €250 because it was over the max donation of €2,500. `Sinn Fein had no personal donors to TDs in 2018, but a list of personal donors which contributed in 2016 can be found in the attached list above.

Ones to watch

This was a tough one to try gauge. I did a lot of research online and I also spoke to people I know who work within politics. Majority of research and advice lead me to believe that if a party does come into power, it will usually be the senior members of the party who take up ministerial roles.

I then began to look at the front bench of each party and see who was the spokesperson within that party for each title. I created a table because I thought it would be easier to portray the results, rather than going through each person individually.

I listed the below parties because these parties are the most prominent for the next election, according to the latest Behaviour and Attitudes poll for the Sunday Times. The poll shows that Fine Gael has lost 2 points, but still remains in the lead with 27%. Fianna Fail is at 25% which could lead to an exciting election. 

Sinn Fein is at 17% which shows a 1% increase. This may lead to Mary Lou McDonalds leadership being questioned since they lost almost half their seats in 2019. The Labour Party and Green party are at 6%. 

I spoke with a local member of People Before Profit (PBP), just to see if they could give me an insight into who might fill which ministerial roles within their party. They advised me that they would not take minister roles.

PBP stated they would like to break down the whole system that is in place, because it does not seem to work. It is for this reason that I left them out of the below chart.

Party	Taoiseach	Finance	Health	Foreign Affairs	Justice	Housing	Environment
Sinn Fein	Mary Lou McDonald	Pearse Doherty	Louise O’Reilly	Sean Crowe	Jonathan O Brien	Eoin O Broin	David Cullinane
Fianna Fail	Michael Martin	Michael McGrath	Billy Kelleher	Darragh O’Brien	Jim O’Callaghan	Barry Cowen	Timmy Dooley
The Labour Party	Brendan Howlin	Joan Burton	Alan Kelly	BrendanHowlin	Sean Sherlock	Jan O’Sullivan	Ivana Bacik
The Green Party	Eamon Ryan	Neasa Hourigan	Dr Seamus McMenamin	Vincent P. Martin	Roderic O’Gorman	Deirdre Ni Fhloinn	Grace O Sullivan

I have not included the current ministers because they are already in power. After looking into the different parties, I have found the above member of each party to be the equivalent to the current ministers if anything was to change.