Friends of Sinn Féin raised $60,000 in six months

Sinn Féin’s US fundraising arm took in $60,280 (€57,000) in the six months to October, its latest filing with the US department of justice shows.

Friends of Sinn Féin said in a submission filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that its expenses totalled $169,000 from May 1st to October 31st, 2015. Most of the money raised came in the form of donations from New York and Massachusetts.

The biggest donor was Thomas Devlin of Newton, Massachusetts, who gave $10,000. The group received seven donations of $5,000 each, including from Friends of Sinn Féin president James P Cullen and Favour Royal, a company controlled by Co Tyrone-born businessman Pat Donaghy, one of the party's biggest donors over the past 20 years.

John T White, a senior executive at Structure Tone, the multibillion revenue New York construction company co-founded by Mr Donaghy in 1971, also donated $5,000 to the party's US arm.

Others who gave the organisation $5,000 include Nelson Air Device Corporation of Maspeth, New York; Pinnacle Environmental Corporation of Carlstadt, New York; W5 Group of Englewood, New Jersey; and US LBM Holdings of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Miscellaneous donations, ranging from $15 to $200, came from as far afield as Newport Beach in California and Tallahassee in Florida.

The money included $54,000 spent on programme expenses, $40,900 on travel-related expenses and $31,800 on payroll costs. It said it did not pay any expenses on behalf of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland.

A separate filing, running to 208 pages, lists the group's activities in the US and includes details of meetings attended by Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness during visits to the US.

The latest fundraising haul does not include the estimated $400,000 raised at the Friends of Sinn Féin dinner in New York last month.