The Electoral Commission issued this handbook on the new regulations in Northern Ireland. Based on the UK’s 2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, the new regulations have a list of persmissible donors. For N.I., however, the enumerated list includes a variety of Irish organizations (p. 8 of handbook):

3.4 PPERA specifies a list of individuals […]

The Belfast Telegraph reports an interview with the UK’s Electoral Commission’s new regulations regarding political party finance in Northern Ireland. In brief, parties are now required to disclose their sources of income, which can only come from particular sources in the UK and in Ireland. There are no contribution limits and none of the information collected by […]

Money would be given to political parties to help them recruit immigrants if a reform to extend voting rights to foreign national were adopted, says Minister of State for Integration. Report at the Irish Times ($).  

The body which oversees campaign finance regulations in Ireland, the Standards in Public Office Commission, has called for reforms to force parties to “clean up their books,” the Independent reports. In particular, they want accountability for political party donations, spending prior to official electoral periods, and increased penalties for failure to comply with existing campaign finance […]

A press release dated June 21 from the Standards in Public Office Commission of the Republic of Ireland begins:
Figures released today by the Standards Commission show that qualified political parties received €12,727,987 in direct funding from the Exchequer during 2006.
Six qualified parties (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin, Progressive Democrats and the Green Party) […]

It’s another month and a half until candidates’ election expenses are due for the May 24th Irish general (Dail) elections, but if they’re reporting was anything like those of the previous election, we can expect them to reveal significant spending beyond the expenditure limits. For the 2002 elections, 56 candidates reported spending in excess of […]

While Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, is busy celebrating the re-devolution of authority in Northern Ireland, he’s also fending off allegations of financial improprieties in the 90’s, which have reached a fever pitch because the parliamentary campaign is underway (the election is May 24) and the Progressive Democrats, the coalition-partners of Ahern’s Fianna Fail, want […]