The Irish Freedom Party has lost its status as a political party after a split resulted in two conflicting applications being made to the register.
The register of political parties is run by the Electoral Commission and a political party must be on the list to contest Dáil, local and European elections under its name.
On Tuesday Art O’Leary, chief executive of the Electoral Commission who also acts as the registrar for political parties, announced his intention to “to cancel the registration of the Irish Freedom Party” and remove it from the register.
O’Leary had received two applications in recent months that were both seeking to update the details of the Irish Freedom Party in the register.
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According to a statement from the Electoral Commission, “the information provided in each application was insufficient and, when considered together, the applications contained conflicting claims”.
“Despite repeated requests for clarification and further information, the registrar was not satisfied that either application demonstrated compliance with the requirements that all registered political parties must meet under section 47 of the Electoral Reform Act 2022,” it said.
Under that law certain details about a political party have to be shared for it to be included on the register, including the name of the officer of the party, the address of its headquarters, and the names and addresses of those responsible for its accounting unit.
The same law says that when a political party does not offer all of the above information, the registrar can cancel the registration of the party.
The Irish Freedom Party, which was first registered as a political party in June 2019, has 21 days to appeal the decision.
Hermann Kelly, one of the founders said members of his party will continue to be active in Irish politics “either under the Irish Freedom Party banner or a new one if need be because of the Electoral Commission.”
Kelly said he believed the “pretext” for the party being removed from the register was a group of “disgruntled” members who had set up a new website which also claimed to be the Irish Freedom Party.
Kelly said his faction had a “validly elected Ard Chomlaire, we have control of the continuity party website, email system, database, stripe account and social media accounts.”
