DUBLIN – Ireland’s Sinn Féin suspended its aggressive efforts to oust Public Expenditure Minister Pascal Donohoe on Thursday, as the opposition party’s campaign against the Eurogroup chairman ended up casting an unwanted spotlight on his own accounting. .
Irish republicans were expected to demand a parliamentary vote of confidence in Donohoe, which would take place this week entrance The problems in his 2016 and 2020 election returns were barely a blemish on his official record. But Sinn Féin MPs reversed course after meeting behind closed doors inside the parliament building, Leinster House.
U-turn followed by two cross-examination That, putting a dent in Donohoe’s reputation for integrity, also sparked media interest in whether Sinn Féin’s own electoral ledgers were in order.
Journalists did not have to look much further than Sinn Féin’s biggest public election events to find questionable and careless failures in the party’s spending records from several elections.
They found the missing Sinn Féin sum to be much larger than Donohoe’s calculated, including an undisclosed reliance on a business friend to make campaign posters, a €234 breach of the 2020 election spending limit and no breach in 2016. . Opposition politicians challenge those figures. deceptively low.
Irish Independent Checked What Sinn Féin reported in 2016 was the cost of renting half a dozen venues for its highest-profile campaign events. Not even a cent appeared in the announcements. When Sinn Féin did not respond to inquiries, The Independent contacted venues directly – and learned that one, the Royal Irish Academy, never paid €600 is owed.
the irish times found its own accounting hole In Sinn Féin’s announced spending for the 2019 European Parliament and 2020 general elections.
Unlike other Irish parties, Sinn Féin’s traditional power base lies in the neighboring UK region of Northern Ireland. The Irish Times found that at least some of the Republic of Ireland’s expenditure was spent north of the border and was mislabelled as Euros, not British Pounds. Such errors reduced its 2020 spending record by €945.
the irish times first exposed Sinn Fein’s failure to report €7,000 spent on the work of a UK polling firm ahead of the 2020 vote.
Sinn Féin branded Donohoe’s undisclosed poster-related donation as a deliberate cover-up, but dismissed all of its own detected errors as accidental. The party said it would revise its previous financial announcements Standards in Public Office Commissionwho are supposed to ensure that spending rules are followed in elections and party fundraising, but are rarely seen to take effective action.
Defending his Fine Gael party ally in parliament, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar accused the Republic of Ireland of exploiting multi-million donations from US and UK-based supporters to distort fair political competition, setting up tries to very strict limits on election expenses.
Senator Michael McDowell, a former Justice Minister and Attorney General, called Sinn Féin’s posture on political fundraising “strange” and “laughable” ethics.
“Sinn Féin operates at a level and with resources that no other party on this island can,” McDowell wrote, “And because it operates in more than one jurisdiction, it is not subject to our system of regulation of political donations.”