A challenge to some of the results in the recent election would have a reasonable chance of success following the Supreme Court ruling on expenses, according to a legal expert.
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a High Court judgment that part of the 1997 Electoral Act was unconstitutional. This excluded office and postal facilities available to members of the Oireachtas from calculable expenses in the light of the spending limits.
This means that the total amounts paid by candidates who were already members of the Oireachtas are likely, in some instances at least, to exceed the limits laid down by law.
However, it is highly unlikely that any successful TD will be prosecuted for exceeding the limits laid down in the 1997 Electoral Act, as they were entitled to rely on the "presumption of constitutionality" which every Act has until challenged. They therefore calculated their expenses in good faith.
But this will not necessarily protect all TDs from a challenge to the result of an election in a specific constituency.
An unsuccessful candidate would have to show the court that the outcome of the election "might be affected" by the unconstitutional behaviour.
In constituencies where the final result was very close, and where the successful candidate exceeded the legal limit on expenditure when the Oireachtas allowances were taken into account, there could therefore be grounds for a challenge, according to senior legal sources.
However, such a challenge would face the difficulty of showing a numerical relationship between the amount of canvassing conducted through the extra Oireachtas allowances, and the votes for the candidate.