Local election candidates will have to disclose donations of more than £500 but there will be no cap on the amount they spend in their campaigns, the Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Danny Wallace, announced. Introducing the Local Elections (Disclosure of Donations and Expenditure) Bill, he said it would provide a statutory scheme for disclosure of election expenditure by candidates, political parties and others at local elections.

He said it would cost £300,000 to administer a system to ensure donations were capped for the approximately 3,500 candidates expected in this year's local elections and that would be unworkable.

However, Opposition politicians rejected this and said it was unfair to less-well-off candidates. Mr Eamon Gilmore (Lab, Dun Laoghaire) said that "candidates who are either wealthy themselves or who have well-heeled backers will therefore have an unfair advantage in these elections".