Thirteen smaller political parties non-compliant with obligation to file audited accounts

Thirteen parties have been found to be non-compliant with their obligation to file audited accounts with the political standards watchdog.

Most of the parties have minimal or no public representatives, little public profile or low membership numbers.

Of 23 parties registered in the State, all the main political parties active in local and national government filed audited statements of account to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo).

However, the Communist Party of Ireland, Direct Democracy Ireland, the Human Dignity Alliance, the Irish Freedom Party, the Party for Animal Welfare, the Right to Change Party, United People and Workers and Unemployed Action parties filed unaudited accounts.

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Identity Ireland, Renua Ireland, The National Party and The Workers’ Party did not file accounts at all, and Fís Nua made a non-compliant submission stating that it had no income or expenditure last year, Sipo said.

While the watchdog has the power to appoint a statutory auditor to carry out an audit of accounts submitted without sign-off from an auditor, it has chosen not to as none of the parties concerned receive funding from the Exchequer.

“Having regard to whether the public interest required the investment of the necessary resources to undertake such an audit, the commission decided not to have the relevant statements audited,” it said in a statement.

In a note accompanying the publication of a report on party accounts, Sipo also addressed the extent to which the Electoral Reform Act 2022 addresses some concerns it had expressed in previous reports.

The act reformed the system and stipulated that subsidiaries of parties must be included by parties in their returns, as should audited accounts for those subsidiaries – including those outside the State. This only applies unless the subsidiary falls below certain income or asset thresholds.

While Sipo welcomed this, it criticised a failure to exempt smaller parties from the requirement to furnish audited accounts.

“The commission considers that this approach is inconsistent with the new provisions relating to subsidiaries and recommends that a further amendment be considered to apply similar thresholds to accounts of party headquarters.”

It also criticised a failure to simplify the reporting requirements political parties have under different pieces of legislation, noting that that the act “does not address [Sipo’s] concerns that the requirements of other legislation to produce financial reports or statements of accounts are not always consistent with each other”.

It argued that it would be “useful to consolidate or at least to reconcile” reporting requirements of all legislation that provides for the State funding of political parties.