THE TEN BIGGEST political parties spent a total of €416,544.50 nationally on election posters last year.
According to the Standards in Public Office 2016 General Election report, Fianna Fáil spent over €145,891.02 on election posters.
Some of the party’s largest spends were on posters for Roscommon’s Eugene Murphy and Dublin West’s Jack Chambers, which cost €5,000 and €6,088 respectively.
Over €5,000 was spent on posters for Dublin Fingal candidate Lorraine Clifford Lee and Cork South-West’s Margaret Murphy-O’Mahony.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael spent less on posters, at €136,556.
Posters for Dublin South-Central Catherine Byrne cost the most for Fine Gael, costing close to €6,000. The party spent over €8,000 on cable ties used to attach the posters to poles.
The Labour Party was the next big poster spender – forking out over €112,136.91.
Arthur Spring had the biggest election poster spend with €4,649, followed by Ann Phelan with €2,025.
Sinn Féin spent €15,885.50 on posters, while AAA/PBP spent €3,376.35.
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Overall spend in general elections has fallen, down 9.5% from 2011 to €8,394,832.89.
Fine Gael was the biggest election spender €2,768,881.
The party spent a quarter of a million on market research which can spawned the “Let’s Keep the Recovery Going” tagline.
It was defended by Director of Elections MEP Brian Hayes, but it received a lot of criticism for refusing to acknowledge that a lot of people were not feeling any sort of recovery.
The party spent more than €30,000 on polling.
Fine Gael spent 39% more than the next highest party, Fianna Fáil with €1,687,916.
Fine Gael’s Donegal candidate Paddy Harte’s total expenditure was over €20,000, while Kildare’s Fiona McLoughlin-Healy spent €16,114.
Fianna Fáil headquarters spent over €10, 000 on Louth candidate Emma Coffey, Waterford’s Mary Butler and Wicklow candidate Jennifer Cuffe.
It spent €5,193 on Dun Laoghaire candidate Mary Hanafin and zero on her running mate Cormac Devlin despite Hanafin narrowly losing out at the selection convention to Devlin. She was later added to the ticket.
Sinn Féin spent just over €650,190, while Labour €1,083,718 - quite the spend for only managing to win seven seats.
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The total expenditure nationally broken down is as follows:
Sipo notified three groups – North East Pylon Pressure Campaign, the Pro Life Campaign, and the Independent Alliance in advance of them incurring election expenses.
The report finds the Pro Life Campaign spent €40,311.03, including €6,274.14 on Facebook adverts and €1,926 on YouTube. The Independent Alliance spend was €552.30.
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