Former Dublin football manager Jim Gavin’s shock presidential campaign exit left Fianna Fáil, quite literally, counting the cost of the party’s botched bid for Áras an Uachtaráin.
The party has spent money on election posters, leaflets, staff and online advertising. But how much is Fianna Fáil likely to lose? And can it get any of the money back?
How much is Fianna Fáil likely to lose?
This is unclear. Asked about the cost of the Gavin campaign at the weekend, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said, “all elections are expensive” and the party will “assess all of that”.
A ballpark figure often cited for the cost of presidential election campaigns is €500,000, but in reality the only campaign to spend such a sum in recent times was Fine Gael’s disastrous attempt to get former MEP Gay Mitchell elected in 2011.
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On Monday, responding to reports that Fianna Fáil’s bill for the Gavin campaign could end up being €500,000, Minister for Higher Education James Lawless was sceptical. “I haven’t heard the final figure. It’s certainly in the hundreds of thousands. I don’t know if it’ll reach five,” he said. “I’ve also heard two hundred and three hundred [thousand] mentioned.”
A Fianna Fáil statement said: “As is always the case for each election, the Party will file an election return with the Standards in Public Office Commission [Sipo] for the Presidential Election which will be publicly available after the election period. The Party is in the process of preparing this return.”
Calamity for Fianna Fáil as Jim Gavin drops out of the presidential race
The exact sum may not ultimately be revealed until Fianna Fáil files its election expenses statements with Sipo. In all likelihood, based on the cost of previous presidential election campaigns, the total spent by Fianna Fáil will be below €500,000.
How much have previous campaigns spent?
The Mitchell campaign run by Fine Gael in 2011 cost €527,152. It did not qualify for any reimbursement of costs from the State after he secured only 6.4 per cent of the first-preference votes.
In 2018, just two of the candidates were reimbursed after the presidential election – the winner, President Michael D Higgins, and the Independent candidate who came second, Peter Casey. Higgins’s re-election campaign cost just over €367,000 and it was reimbursed up to the then maximum of €200,000.
Casey was refunded the full amount of his expenses, which amounted to €119,911. Sinn Féin spent some €209,716 on its 2018 candidate Liadh Ní Riada’s campaign, but lost out on any reimbursement as her vote share was too low.
How does a candidate qualify for reimbursement?
Campaign costs will only be reimbursed by the State if a candidate wins the election or reaches more than 25 per cent of the quota. Under those circumstances, they are entitled to a refund of election expenses up to a new maximum of €250,000.
Could FF still qualify for reimbursement?
In theory, yes, but this is highly unlikely. Gavin’s name remains on the ballot paper and if his vote exceeds 25 per cent of the quota, Fianna Fáil will be in line for reimbursement up to the cap of €250,000.
The quota – and therefore a quarter of it – can only be calculated once the election count determines the total number of valid votes. A quarter of the quota in the 2018 election was just under 184,238 votes, or 12.5 per cent of the valid poll.
It would seem a very tall order for Gavin to get a similar level of support on election day, given that he is no longer campaigning and had been trailing in polls.
