FG and FF want funding details withheld

Plans to force political parties to publish full financial accounts annually are facing resistance from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, who have expressed concerns about the implications for local branches.

The Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) has proposed new guidelines for parties on publishing full details of their books and accounts every year.

This will include detailed disclosure of income, expenditure, assets and debts — including loans — by all political parties. The proposals also include the introduction of financial reporting system by local party organisations — which are believed to be significant sources of political funds. It proposes a transitional arrangement for 2014 to 2016 to allow the amalgamation of party branch finances into the national accounts.

However, the two main parties have stated this will pose huge practical difficulties given their local branches are run on a voluntary and non-professional basis, and deal largely in cash.

John Mitchell, head of finance in Fine Gael, has written to Sipo, saying one of his “greatest” concerns with the draft guidelines was the “audit requirements at branch level” which he said “need to reflect the voluntary nature of the role”.

In a letter to the secretary of Sipo, David Waddell, Mr Mitchell said: “We need to keep the demands on our volunteers appropriate to the level they operate at. We cannot audit untrained volunteers in the same way we would paid professional staff. We need to preserve the voluntary ethos of the organisation.”

The party’s submission to Sipo said, given the small nature of units outside party headquarters, they are likely to prepare information “on a cash receipts basis only”.

Fianna Fáil said it would be “completely unworkable” to place the reporting responsibility of 2,500 local organisations onto the party’s national office.

The party’s general secretary, Sean Dorgan, said 39 local accounting units currently submit certificates of monetary donations and bank statements to Sipo, which are not made public.

He said this is a “relatively basic reporting requirement with no significant financial reporting element”.

However, he said: “All political parties have found it difficult to encourage local volunteer officers of these accounting units to meet this basic reporting requirement.”

Both parties have sought meetings with Sipo to discuss their concerns.

It is feared any plans to water down the proposals would allow donations to flow through local branches rather than nationally, and allow parties to circumvent the rules of disclosure.

Rules on financial reporting are included in the Electoral (Amendment) Political Funding Act which passed through the Dáil last year. The legislation empowered Sipo — in consultation with the political parties — to prepare guidelines on a uniform format for accounts.

It followed reports by the Mahon and Moriarty Tribunals identifying corruption risk from inadequate regulation of party political funding and recommended more disclosure and monitoring of their finances.

A legal requirement for parties to publish independently audited accounts was also recommended by the Council of Europe’s peer review body, the Group of States Against Corruption.

In 2009, it noted the failure of local accounting units of Irish parties to adhere to Sipo guidelines that all donations over €100 be reported to party HQ.