The President, Mrs McAleese, spent some £500,000 on her election campaign last October while her main rival, Ms Mary Banotti, spent close to £400,000, according to an official report published yesterday.
The figures were released by the Public Offices Commission, established by the Electoral Act 1997. This compels the election agent of each candidate to supply for publication a list of all campaign donations worth more than £500. Smaller donations do not have to be revealed.
While Mrs McAleese's campaign lists £87,000 worth of donations, mainly from business people and their companies, Ms Banotti, Ms Adi Roche and Ms Dana Rosemary Scallon received little or no business contributions. Mr Derek Nally received some £40,000 in business contributions, mostly from local Wexford businesses.
The political parties were by far the largest donors to the campaigns. Fianna Fail headquarters gave £286,000 to Mrs McAleese's campaign and local party organisations gave over £10,000. The sole Progressive Democrats contribution to the candidate it backed appears to have been £519.50, given by its Galway West organisation.
Fine Gael headquarters gave £322,000 to Ms Banotti's campaign and a further £58,711 came from local party organisations. Ms Roche received £47,467.88 from the Labour Party, £28,295.12 from Democratic Left, and £2,180 from the Green Party. Green Party TD Mr Trevor Sargent and MEP Ms Patricia McKenna made personal donations of £1,500 each.
The building industry features prominently among the declared donors to Mrs McAleese's campaign. Donors include Ballymore Securities Ltd (£12,120), Treasury Holdings (£2,500), Stephen Finn Contractors (£3,000), Pierse Contracting (£4,000), Mountbrook Developments (£5,000), Kelland Homes, Durkan Ltd, Maplewood Homes and G & T Crampton Ltd (all £1,000 each).
Mr Martin Naughton, who was subsequently appointed to the Council of State by Mrs McAleese, gave £5,000 to her campaign. Glen Dimplex, of which he is executive chairman, gave £6,000.
The declarations on behalf of Ms Adi Roche, Mr Derek Nally and Ms Dana Rosemary Scallon declare donations of £1,000 each from the EBS building society. Neither Mrs McAleese nor Ms Banotti appears to have received money from the EBS.
Another building society, the Irish Nationwide, gave £2,500 to Ms Roche's campaign.
Donations of goods and services must also be declared. Ms Roche received clothes worth £1,000 from Kilkenny Design; Ms Scallon declared the use - worth an estimated £2,960 - of a motor vehicle from White and Delahunty; and Mr Nally declared the use of helicopters (estimated at £8,668), a Mercedes (£2,170) and a Saab (£1,500).
Ms Dana Rosemary Scallon listed donations to the value of just £18,500, backing up her rejection during the campaign of claims that she was secretly backed financially by conservative groups and individuals. She always maintained that her campaign was inexpensive, and was funded substantially by herself and her family.
The largest contribution to her campaign was £6,728.38 from Irish-American businessman Mr William J. Flynn.