Parties received €4.7 million in State funds

Political parties received €4.7 million in Exchequer funding last year and disclosed just over €162,000 in donations.

Political parties received €4.7 million in Exchequer funding last year and disclosed just over €162,000 in donations.

The figures were released this evening by the Standards in Public Office Commission, to which the parties must declare the donations they receive.

Fianna Fail declared €8,579, of which €2,300 was returned to the donor.

Fine Gael had no donations to declare.  The Green Party received donations of €43,296, all of which was donated by its elected TDs and MEPs.

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The Labour Party declared a total donation of €6,348.69 from its Dublin MEP Mr Proinsias De Rossa.

A donation of €6,200, the maximum allowed by an individual in any year, from Mr Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party accounted for the total declared by the party.

Sinn Fein's total declared donations of €103,583 were also made by the party's elected TDs, MEPs and MLAs.

The Exchequer gave the political parties a total of €4,723,424 in funding.  Fianna Fail received €1,972,279; Fine Gael €1,126,877; Labour €606,324; Green Party €298,114 and Sinn Fein €416,566.

Each party qualifies for State funding of just under €127,000, plus a portion of a fund of €3.8 million.  The amount payable to the each party is based on the proportion of first preference votes it received in the last election.