Political parties spent some €11 million during the three-week general election campaign last May. However, the State watchdog for standards in public office warned yesterday that gaps in the law mean this figure may be just a fraction of the real cost.
Fianna Fáil was the biggest spender (€3.65 million), followed by Fine Gael (€2.8 million), Labour, (€1.47 million), the Progressive Democrats (€1.01 million), non-party candidates (€795,860) and Sinn Féin (€685,095).
When this money is broken down on a cost-per-vote basis, the PDs' votes were the most expensive.
They spent €17.96 per vote, followed by the Labour Party (€7.06), Independents and smaller parties (€6.53), the Green Party (€5.71) and Fine Gael (€4.97), Sinn Féin (€4.78) and Fianna Fáil (€4.24).
No individual breached the statutory spending limits for candidates, which allow a person standing for election to spend a maximum of between €30,150 and €45,200, depending on the size of the constituency.
Notwithstanding this, the commission said it referred 13 files to the Garda in relation to contraventions of spending rules, such as failure to furnish donation statements and election expense statements.
Many of these related to independent candidates, although there are some higher-profile candidates such as Cllr Madeleine Taylor-Quinn (Fine Gael) in Co Clare.
However, commission officials said most of the individuals had since provided the commission with the relevant documentation.
The biggest spenders were based in five-seat constituencies, where spending limits are highest.
Money, however, was no guarantee of winning a seat, with only two of the top 10 biggest spenders winning a seat in the Dáil. Half of those in the top 10 were PD candidates.
The biggest individual spender was PD candidate Tom Parlon, who spent €43,882 on his campaign.
He has no record of receiving any donations, while he received a relatively small amount of money from the PDs.
This indicates that his campaign was largely financed by himself or through donations which were below the disclosure threshold of €635. Other big spenders were Labour's Nicky Kelly in Wicklow (€41,359), Independent candidate Pat Doran in Wicklow (€40,187) and the PDs' Colm O'Gorman in Wexford (€39,339).
When the spending is broken down on a cost-per-vote basis, the PDs' candidate in Dublin South Central Frank McNamara spent €77 for each of the 474 votes he received.
The Standards in Public Office Commission warned yesterday that political parties were spending significant amounts of money in advance of the campaign, ensuring such sums were not classified as election spending.
It warned that tougher laws were needed to force parties to provide details of their spending in the months leading up to a general election in order to maintain public confidence confidence in the credibility of the spending limits.
Under existing laws, political parties are free to spend as much as they like before the election is officially called.
In a statement yesterday, the commission said expenditure should be monitored for between two and three months in advance of an election campaign in order to prevent a spending "free-for- all".
"It is now clear that the public perception of the legislation is that it is now achieving its stated aim of limited expenditure at election by political parties and candidates," the commission said.
