Willie O’Dea’s ticket to a FF seat set him back €17,592.86
THE candidate who topped the election spending poll in February’s general election was Independent city councillor, Kevin Kiely.
Cllr Kiely splashed out €25,559.48 on his election campaign, according to figures recently released by the Standards in Public Office Commission.
It also revealed that there was no public funding for his campaign.
This was in stark contrast with the most frugal campaign which was that of another non-party candidate, Patrick O’Doherty, who spent just €95 trying to get elected. The majority of candidates in the running spent between €9,000 and €17,000 on their campaigns.
On the lower end of the scale were Conor O ‘Donoghue of the Christian Solidarity, who spent €195.71 on the election trail, while non-party candidate Denis Riordan, was minding the pennies with a final bill for €140, and independent candidate Matt Larkin spent €836.60 on his bid for a seat.
Green Party candidates adopted a waste-not, want-not approach to the campaign, with Stephen Wall spending €664.45 on his bid to get elected in the county, all of which was spent on printing, and Sheila Cahill had a spend of €888.51 on campaign expenses in the city.
Another non-party candidate, Con Cremin, parted with €780.
Fine Gael’s John Sheahan, had expenditure of €15,904.14. Labour’s Joe Leddin handed over €14,994.04, while running mate, Jan O’Sullivan had to dip into the election purse to the tune of €16,389.57
Michael Noonan (FG) spent €16,347.43, and his party colleague, Kieran O’Donnell forked out €17,843.62.
Willie O’Dea’s ticket to a Fianna Fail seat set him back €17,592.86.
His running mate, Peter Power, put €19,443.34 into his bid to get back into the Dail. Socialist Party candidate Cian Prendeville had outlay of €2,341.07, and Sinn Fein’s Maurice Quinliven handed out €11,237.05 for leaflets and other expenses accumulated on the hustings.
Outside the city, Labour’s James Heffernan spent €13,699.33, while one of the higher-spending non-party candidates was John Dillon, who put €18,025.83 into his campaign.
Another county non-party candidate got away with a much smaller bill of €1,238.34, which was what Seamus Sherlock forked out.
Fianna Fail’s Niall Collins ran a high-profile campaign which cost €17,033.59, while Fine Gael’s Dan Neville put his hand in his pocket to the tune of €10,544.
Another Fine Gael candidate, Patrick O’Donovan, spent €10,944. William O’Donnell had the smallest election bill of the three Fine Gael candidates, at €9,619.
