Daniel McConnell: Fallout from Donohoe saga leaves Sinn Féin exposed
Paul Mcdonald Via Féin's Lou Sinn Getty Faith/afp Ireland Michelle Sinn Mary O'neill Féin Picture: And Leader Leader Northern Images
Two weeks on from the Paschal Donohoe poster saga emerging, Sinn Féin has been forced to submit its 2020 general election returns to the Standards in Public Office (Sipo) for a fourth time on foot of an “administrative error”.
The party has confirmed that its 2020 election expenses statement to Sipo has had to be corrected again after the party found further errors in its returns.
Two invoices with sterling values of £4,800 and £800 were sent by the party to Sipo in 2020, but the euro value should have been returned.
This means the party under-declared its election expenses for 2020 by €945.
Sinn Féin previously had to change its declaration for the 2020 general election after it omitted spending on an opinion poll costing almost €7,000.
Two entries, highlighted by the , under the “publicity” category in Sinn Féin’s return to Sipo related to work the party had carried out by businesses in Northern Ireland.
The first related to work done by Belfast-based company Offline Central on editing Sinn Féin’s party political broadcast for the election.
The party recorded the spending as being €4,800. However, the invoice from the company shows the work was charged for in sterling at a rate of £4,800.
The second entry was for work carried out on television and radio material by Newtownards business HotPress Sound.
Again in this instance, the party declared the spending as being €800 when the invoice shows the work was charged £800 in sterling.
A party spokesperson said: "This was an administrative error that should not have happened. It will be corrected and returned to Sipo.
"Both invoices were paid by the party in the south, at the following rates: Offline Central: €5,601.25 and HotPress Sound: €943.96."
The party also had omissions in its expenses statement for 2019 European elections. Its candidates, Matt Carthy in Midlands North West and Lynn Boylan in Dublin, assigned all their campaign spending to the party nationally but did not report the amount spent per candidate as is required by Sipo rules.
The sections were left blank.
Sinn Féin has sought to say the failure to fill out the forms correctly were a result of a simple error.
Sinn Féin also failed to declare spending on an opinion poll carried out by British company Survation during the 2020 election at a cost of almost €7,000.
That invoice was “accidentally omitted due to staff working remotely as a result of public health restrictions. When this came to our attention, the statement was immediately amended and the invoice sent to them (Sipo),” the party said.
A story which began as an embarrassment for Donohoe and his party who like to think of themselves as better and purer than the rest, has become a plague on the house of the main opposition party, who has been on the back foot for a number of days.
The normally composed and tenacious Louise O’Reilly was surprisingly outgunned by a revived Simon Coveney on RTÉ’s .
It was also reported recently in the that Sinn Féin failed to pay for a professional valuation of its party headquarters for at least a decade, despite this being recommended under official accounting rules.
A Sinn Féin spokesman said that the party had intended to carry out revised valuations of the two Parnell Square buildings in recent years, but that this had "proved difficult" with Covid-19 over the past few years.
With so many errors in their own declarations, why would Sinn Féin seek to draw so much attention to the errors of Fine Gael.
Perhaps they know what they do matters little to their likely voters who are demanding change, no matter what the cost.