€80,000 in donations for Fine Gael from own TDs in 2019

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar (right) is listed as donating €1,781, with Simon Coveney donating €2,259. File picture: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie

Fine Gael took in almost €80,000 in donations from its own TDs in 2019, the latest report from the Standards in Public Office Commission shows.

The commission reports all donations in excess of €1,500 and the 2019 report shows that Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Labour Party took in the largest sums of the total €175,000 donated to political parties in Ireland.

The maximum total value of donations that a political party can accept from the same donor in the same calendar year is €2,500. 

The three parties took in the money solely from donations from their own TDs, MEPs and Senators, with no third-party donations declared by any of the three.

In Fine Gael, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar is listed as donating €1,781, with Simon Coveney donating €2,259 and the largest donation coming from Kildare North TD Bernard Durkan, who gave €2,441. 

The party raised a total of  €79,456 from donations.

In Sinn Féin, which raised €45,620, Mary Lou McDonald gave €2,500, while Gerry Adams donated €2,460.

The Labour Party's €21,800 intake came from donations ranging from €2,400 from TDs such as Joan Burton, Brendan Howlin and Sean Sherlock to €1,800 from its then senators Ivana Bacik, Gerard Nash and Kevin Humphries.

Fianna Fáil, meanwhile, was left €2,500 from the estate of former Galway councillor Michael Fahy.

Other donations included a total of €9,000 given to the Green Party, including €2,500 from MEP Grace O'Sullivan, €7,500 donated to the National Party and a single €2,500 donation to Aontú.  

The SIPO report says that political parties continue to encounter difficulties complying with the legislation.

It says: "Issues identified included - accessing bank statements for the preceding calendar year in time for the 31 March deadline; retrieving political party bank account statements due to a change of responsible person; and lengthy delays with bank procedures to open political donations accounts. 

"Accounting units have reported that the process of opening a political donation account may be protracted and can lead to a delay in the lodging of the donation."