Election spending - Removal of bias is good news for all

Whatever short-term implications may flow from yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on election spending rules, it should help to make the playing pitch more level in future elections.

The more immediate consequence is that disappointed candidates in last May’s general election are entitled to petition the courts if they believe the result in their case was undermined by the use of State facilities by outgoing TDs or Senators. Realistically, the result would have had to have been excruciatingly tight to warrant such a recourse.

Sitting politicians who are deemed to have overspent could face prosecution, but that course of action is unlikely under the circumstances, given the rules were changed on the eve of the election by the High Court.

A classic example of a where a challenge to overturn a result could happen would be Cork South Central where sitting Deputy John Dennehy won out over Independent candidate Kathy Sinnott for the fifth seat with only six votes separating them. Another close contest was between Mildred Fox and Nicky Kelly, which Kelly lost by 19 votes, again after recounts.

Whether or not any defeated candidate will seek a legal remedy will, in any case, have to wait until the Standards in Public Office Commission, which polices election spending.

The commission will need time to consider the Supreme Court decision before advising election agents on what they should include in spending returns.

That formality was deferred because of the legal action that resulted in yesterday’s decision.

The High Court and the Supreme Court could have been spared the necessity of adjudicating on the issue had cognisance been taken of the last two annual reports from the commission which had pointed to use of State facilities eventually proving a problem.

In launching his original High Court challenge against the State effectively subsidising the campaigns of sitting politicians to the detriment of other candidates, Des Kelly, a Fianna Fáil candidate, has highlighted what was blatantly an unfair advantage.

Depending on the size of the constituency where they stood, candidates were entitled to spend up to €38,000.

However, it has been estimated that State facilities such as the use of Dáil offices, phones and postage, may have been worth almost another €2,000 to those who availed of them. In the case of ministers, the advantage was probably considerably more.

The Supreme Court, by disallowing the State appeal, has now put those facilities beyond the reach of sitting politicians who may contest future elections.

What Des Kelly sought was not to deprive those of the facilities, but rather to allow other candidates who did not enjoy such a State advantage, be entitled to spend the equivalent on their campaigns.

That bias has now been removed, but the spirit of the law must be observed by the Government in any review of the rules governing election spending.