No donations over €5,000 for three biggest parties in 2012

Three of the biggest political parties in the country - Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil - say they did not receive any donations in excess of €5,000 in the last year.

According to data released by the Standards in Public Office Commission earlier just over €33,000 was disclosed in 2012.

The gardaí have been informed that three political parties - The Workers Party, The Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit Alliance - made no return at all.

2012 was the last year in which the €5,000 threshold applied. New rules now mean that anything in excess of €1,500 has to be accounted for.

"We're hopeful that the new regulations that were introduced this year will go some way to cleaning up the system," said John Devitt, chief executive of Transparency International Ireland.

"But I'm sure we'll come back to this again and we'll be looking at how the rules should be strengthened further."