IT SEEMS like an awful lot of money. But €2.3 million would only have bought a large Dublin house at the height of the property bubble. So, how much money should presidential candidates be allowed to spend in an election campaign and what proportion, if any, should be refunded from the public purse?
The Standards in Public Office Commission has reported that the seven candidates who contested the presidential election, last October, spent the above sum. They disclosed some €305,000 in private donations. The cost to the taxpayer, in terms of reimbursed expenditure, amounted to €600,00. There was, in addition, the cost of printing ballot papers, manning polling stations and conducting election counts. But that is the in-built price for democracy.
The recession has squeezed all sections of society. And political parties are no exception. Under legislation passed in 2004, the spending limit for a presidential candidate was set at a whopping €1.3 million and the State became liable to reimburse up to €260,000 in campaign spending. On taking office, this Government cut spending limits to €750,000 per candidate and reduced the reimbursement allowance to €200,000. Even now, the thresholds appear to be overly generous. While candidates could have spent a total of €5.25 million in the election, their actual outgoings amounted to less than half of that sum.
Fianna Fáil’s decision not to nominate a candidate influenced those figures, but not to any dramatic extent. A similar pattern was evident in last year’s general election. Candidates in all 41 constituencies were entitled to splash out a total of €16.7 million on electioneering, but spent only €6.5 million. Thresholds may be too high, right across the board.
A striking aspect of the figures published this week is that while six of the seven presidential candidates spent in excess of €300,000 each, they returned a total of €305,000 in private, “disclosed donations”. All donations in excess of €635 should be disclosed. Gay Mitchell’s campaign – the most expensive and least successful of recent times – was totally funded by the Fine Gael party. In spite of legislation and regular appeals for reform by the commission, the source of a great deal of political funding remains opaque.
To qualify for a State refund, a candidate had to receive more than one-quarter of the votes cast. Three candidates, Michael D. Higgins, Seán Gallagher and Martin McGuinness qualified and received a total of €600,000. The two highest spenders, Mr Mitchell and Mary Davis, did not.
A constitutional convention will be established later this year. It will consider the abolition of the Seanad and review the electoral system. Also on the agenda is a proposal that the presidential term should be reduced from seven to five years, and held in tandem with local and European elections.
Political funding, spending and reimbursement limits should be included for consideration.