Political parties including Renua found to be non-compliant with accounting rules
Required Provide 23 Statements 2021 To Political Sipo Registered Accounts To Of There Were For Parties
A number of political parties — including Renua, the Irish Freedom Party and the National Party — have been found to be non-compliant with accounting rules by the country's ethics watchdog, the Standards in Public Office (Sipo).
There were 23 registered political parties required to provide statements of accounts to Sipo for 2021. Ten parties — Aontú, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Green Party, Independents 4 Change, Kerry Independent Alliance, People Before Profit/Solidarity, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats and the Labour Party — were found to be fully compliant with their legal obligations to provide an annual statement of accounts.
Under the Electoral Act 1997, all registered political parties are required to submit audited statements of accounts to Sipo by June 30 following the end of the calendar year to which the accounts relate.
Eight parties — the Communist Party of Ireland, Direct Democracy Ireland, Human Dignity Alliance, Irish Freedom Party, Party for Animal Welfare, The Right to Change Party, United People and Workers and Unemployed Action — provided a statement of accounts that did not comply with the act.
One party — Fís Nua — provided correspondence that did not comply with the act, while four political parties — Identity Ireland, Renua Ireland, the National Party and the Workers’ Party — failed to provide a statement of accounts.
The irregularities vary from formatting differences to accounts being unsigned or not audited. Renua Ireland had not provided its statement of accounts for 2020 by the time the commission published its statement of accounts 2020 report.
Renua subsequently provided its 2020 statement to the commission on March 25, 2022. Some minor queries on the statement were raised, but have yet to be addressed by the party.
The Sipo report says "several issues have arisen in the provision of party statements of accounts that may not have been anticipated when the legislation was being drafted".
"In previous reports on statements of accounts, the commission recommended that smaller parties should be exempted from the requirement to furnish audited statements of accounts to the commission.
"The commission also noted that the act provides that, where a registered political party that qualifies for exchequer funding fails to provide a statement of accounts accompanied by a Statutory Auditors' Report, no further payment of exchequer funding will be made to that party until it complies with its obligations in this regard."