Property developers were largest donors to parties
A sample of annual returns revealed 71% of the payments to six parties came from businesses whose primary interest was property development. Of those, Sean Mulryan’s Ballymore Properties and Durkan New Homes accounted for the largest amounts, €29,580 and €23,084 respectively.
These and other construction related operations donated €80,626 either side of the 2007 election. And although Fianna Fáil received the most, parties from across the spectrum also benefited.
Fine Gael said it did not dispute the payments recorded by companies. These were all below the reporting threshold. Where it did not have records, it assumed the money had gone to individuals. But, it said the United Arab Emirates Dirham payments from Harcourt Developments and Airscape Ltd had been received in euro.
A spokesman said a new fundraising system adopted after 2002 had kept it in line with the Standards in Public Office Commission’s (SIPO) requirements.
The Progressive Democrats did not query the substance of one payment, from Ballymore Properties, which appeared to have surpassed the reporting threshold.
A spokesman said the €6,200 recorded was spread across two reporting years and did not surpass the limits either time.
An apparent excessive payment of €6,700 made by the same company to the Labour Party was queried by its spokesman because a donation of €6,300 was disclosed in its annual return to SIPO.
A spokesman said it had a cheque receipt for €6,300 and it could not account for the remaining €400 recorded on Ballymore’s accounts.
Fianna Fáil did not comment on any of its donations. However, in 2005 and prior to that it had declared similar sized donations from many of the same companies in its SIPO disclosures. But in 2006 and 2007 it did not declare them.
In cases where the sums on the company’s records were too high but still close to the reporting limits, SIPO said there was a caveat in the legislation which helped parties sneak under the threshold.
Each party can write off any expense incurred while raising the cash. This can lower the amount so it avoids being reported.
SIPO has asked the political parties to reform the system to demand all their income can be accounted for.
It complained to Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue about a lack of transparency which is evidenced by the fact there is no system to allow the donations revealed today, which were documented on annual returns filed with the Companies Registration Office, to be cross referenced with disclosures to SIPO. According to the office, businesses who make a disclosure are not collated on a database and, for 2008, were only gathered together after a request from the Irish Examiner.
“There was no obligation on the CRO to create this record,” it said.
A subsequent Freedom of Information request revealed the names of the companies involved and several others which had declared donations to charitable groups.
The Companies Registration Office denied a request for similar records from 2002 to 2006 because it did not have a corresponding list for those years.
The Irish Examiner was unable to establish how many companies made donation declarations in other years.
