Two big parties spent most in Election 2020, Munster county topped constituency spend

Sinn Féin had the third-largest declared spend followed by Labour, the Green Party and the Social Democrats

The largest declared spend came from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who spent €2.2m and €2.1m respectively.

Election expenses in the 2020 General Election were down 13% on the figure spent in 2016.

A new report from the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) said that the overall declared amount spent on the 2020 election was €7.3m, down from €8.4m four years previous.

The largest declared spend came from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who spent €2.2m and €2.1m respectively. Sinn Féin declared spending of €697,000, Labour €481,000, the Green Party €316,000 and Social Democrats €240,000. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael each reported spending €1.1m on candidates and Sinn Féin €474,000.

The constituency with the biggest combined spend was Tipperary at €260,951.

A total of 319 election candidates qualified for reimbursement of their election expenses. To qualify, a candidate must have been elected or received a certain percentage of the first preference vote. The total certified for reimbursement to candidates to date is €2,548,827, SIPO said, with no candidate reported to have exceeded the statutory expenditure limits.

If a candidate was unsuccessful at the election, they were required to provide to the Commission a donation statement disclosing all donations received greater than €600. Donations with a total value of €111,282 were disclosed by 64 unsuccessful candidates, down slightly from 2016, where €112,320 was disclosed by 102 candidates.

The report also shows that the Pro Life Campaign spent €37,345 supporting candidates as "other people". An “other person” is a person who intends to incur expenses at the election to promote or oppose a candidate or a political party.

Following the election, SIPO referred 25 files to the Director for Public Prosecutions for failure to submit the relevant statutory documentation by the statutory deadline. SIPO said that enforcement action is ongoing in a number of cases.

The report suggests a host of changes to the Electoral Act, saying that "the establishment of an Electoral Commission, as envisaged in the forthcoming Electoral Reform Bill, should prompt a complete review of the legislation". It says that the Electoral Commission should have a statutory role to review the operation of the Act and report on its findings. 

It adds that the Commission is concerned that "front-loading" of campaign expenditure "undermines the effectiveness of the expenditure limits and may create the perception that accounting for expenditure at elections is little more than a paper exercise".

"The Commission considers that expenditure on goods, property or services used for electoral purposes in the two to three months leading up to a formal election call could reasonably be construed as intended to elicit support at the election for a candidate or political party and should be included in the reporting of expenses."

SIPO also released a report on the 2020 Seanad elections and found that five candidates disclosed donations totalling €5,970.94. This was a decrease of 30% on the 2016 Seanad General Election when seven candidates disclosed donations totalling €8,459. 

The Commission sent files to the DPP about two candidates who had failed to return the required statutory documentation. Charges against one candidate were withdrawn for jurisdictional reasons, while another case is ongoing.