Greens spend close to €22,000 in taxpayer funds on mediation consultants to tackle internal party conflict

The Green Party spent almost €22,000 in taxpayer funding on mediation consultants as part of efforts to address conflict within the organisation last year.

Despite its general election success in 2020, the party was riven by internal divisions afterwards with a portion of the membership adamantly opposed to entering government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

There were allegations of toxic rows, bullying and sexism among the party’s membership.

The Green Party spent €674 from its State funding on “mediation consultancy” in 2020. This increased to €21,790 last year as the party put in place formal complaints resolution processes.

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The spending is listed in the party’s declaration to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) on how it spent exchequer funding, one of two streams of funding provided to political parties by the State.

The party described the item of expenditure as “mediations and investigations consultancy” in its return to Sipo.

Wellbeing commitment

Asked about the spending, a Green Party spokeswoman said: “As a grassroots party, we are committed to the wellbeing of our members and representatives.

“The party has grown exponentially in the past three years and, in response to calls from our membership, and for the purposes of due diligence, the party has put in place more robust and formalised processes for complaints and conflict resolution which includes access to external, independent supports.”

She said most issues are “resolved internally” but in some cases they are “brought to, and resolved through, mediation”.

The spokeswoman said “in rare circumstances, a small number of issues were escalated to an independent HR consultant for review”.

Sipo on Wednesday published reports on the allocation and spending of State funding by political parties and Independent TDs.

Two funds

In total, nine political parties got a combined €13.4 million in funding through one or – in most cases – both streams of State funding: exchequer funding and the parliamentary activities allowance (PAA).

The Green Party – whose spending declarations to Sipo offered more detail than many of the other parties – got €1,212,949 overall and spent €1,348,747. It had €248,372 left over from 2020.

Political parties are not allowed to use money from the two funds directly on election or referendum expenses.

The level of exchequer funding a party receives depends on the proportion of the first-preference vote it received in the previous general election. The PAA is based on the number of Oireachtas members a party has and those in Government get less funding in this category.

Much of the spending relates to staff costs in party headquarters, and other spending goes on administration, research, the promotion of women and young people in politics and think-ins, national conferences or ard-fheiseanna.

Unspent sums can be rolled into the following year.

Sinn Féin got the highest sum – a combined €3,592,275 from the two funds – and declared spending last year of €2,477,395.

Fianna Fáil received the next highest amount – €3,225,530 – and spent some €2,564,378. Fine Gael got funding of €2,980,027 and spent €2,470,718.