Political funding in Ireland has re-emerged as an issue of public policy quite recently when in 2012 the Electoral Act of 1997 was amended to cover basic needs of transparency and control.
[1] Under the Electoral Act 1997, a registered party is eligible for payments from the Central Fund in proportion to the percentage of total first-preference votes its candidates received at the previous general election.
[3] Small parties on the brink of the threshold have also exhorted supporters to turn out even in constituencies where their local candidate has no chance of winning a seat.
Based on the information published for 1998 Murphy and Farrell contend that Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin were the parties which received the highest amounts of private funding.
The allocation formula seeks to give fair opportunities to all parties, taking into account the number of candidates presented and the share of votes polled in the previous election.
International IDEA conveys the impression that hitherto it has displayed respectful neglect of all "big fish" donations, which tend to go unreported.
[25] Without presenting evidence for its deviating view, the GRECO report on Ireland assigns a much more positive evaluation to 'the proactive advisory role played by the Standards Commission to promote transparency of party funding'.