December 2006 - Guidelines for Political Parties on donations and prohibited donations

3. Donations

A donation to a political party means any contribution given for political purposes by any person, whether or not the person is a member of a political party, and includes all or any of the following, namely -

• a donation of money;
• a donation of property or goods;
• conferring the right to use, without payment or other consideration, indefinitely or for a specified period of time, any property or goods;
• the supply of services without payment or other consideration therefor;
• the difference between the commercial price and the price charged for the purchase, acquisition or use of property or goods, or the supply of any service, where the price, fee or other consideration is less than the commercial price; (this can include a loan provided to a political party by a financial institution at terms and conditions which are more favourable than that provided by the financial institution to other individuals. Details of the Standards Commission's position with regard to the issuing and repayment of loans are set out in part 4 of these guidelines.)
• a contribution made by a person to a fund-raising event organised for the purpose of raising funds for a political party. The donation is that proportion of the contribution which is attributable to the net profit, if any, deriving from the event. This is explained in greater detail in Appendix 1 of these guidelines.

Donations exceeding €5,078.95 in value received from the same person in the same calendar year must be disclosed in the party's annual Donation Statement (see part 8 for further details). A political party may not accept a donation from the same person in the same calendar year which exceeds €6,348.69 in value (see part 5 for further details).

When considering what constitutes a donation to a political party the following matters are also relevant:

1. A donation made to a political party, whether made directly or through an intermediary, is deemed to be a donation to the party if it is made to party headquarters or to any branch or subsidiary of the party or if it is made to any officer, member or agent of the party or of any branch or subsidiary thereof.
2. Where a person makes more than one donation to the same political party in the same calendar year, the values of the donations must be aggregated and the donations treated as a single donation. Part 6 below sets out the steps which the appropriate officer of a political party must take in order to comply with the requirement to aggregate donations.
3. The Act provides that a donation made to a TD, Senator or MEP of a political party or to a candidate of a political party at a Dáil, Seanad or European election is deemed to be a donation made to the party, if the donation is passed on to the party by the recipient and he/she receives a written acknowledgement of the donation from the party.
4. The Act also provides that where a donation is made to a candidate of the party at a local election or to a member of the party who is a member of a local authority the donation is deemed to be a donation to the party. This provision was introduced by the 1998 Electoral (Amendment) Act. It has not been amended, however, to take account of the fact that candidates at local elections and members of local authorities have their own disclosure requirements under the Local Elections (Disclosure of Donations and Expenditure) Act 1999 as amended. The Standards Commission will only regard a donation made to a candidate at a local election or a member of a local authority as having been made to a political party if the candidate or member concerned has passed the donation to the party and has received a written acknowledgement from the party that it has accepted the donation. Political parties will not, therefore, be required to account for donations which have been received by candidates at local elections or members of local authorities and which have not been passed on to the party.

The Act provides that the following items shall not be regarded as a donation to a political party:

• any payment, service or facility provided to a political party out of public funds or moneys provided by an institution of the European Communities or other intergovernmental organisation to which the State is a party, by virtue of it being a political party, a political group or any group of members in the Dáil, or a member of, delegate to or representative in a body established by or under an agreement or arrangement to which the State is a party;
• benefits derived from a service rendered by an individual, including the use of the individuals motor vehicle, on behalf of a political party, where that service is gratuitous and is not part of that individual's work carried out under a contract of employment, or where the individual is self-employed, in the course of the individual's business or in the practice of the individual's profession;
• the publication in a newspaper, magazine or other publication or the broadcast on radio or television of news, reports, articles, features, editorial or other comments, including the publication of letters to the editor, where such publication or broadcast is effected in the same manner as that of other material relating to issues of public interest or concern, and the publication is not for the purpose of promoting the interests of a political party;
• the transmission on radio or television of a broadcast on behalf of a political party. (This exclusion does not cover any production, or other, costs associated with a transmission on radio or television.)

In considering what does not constitute a donation to a political party the following matters also apply:

A. Donations made to political parties in Northern Ireland or to entities of political parties in the US or elsewhere, which are given and applied for the purpose of funding the party's political/electoral activities outside this State, are not donations for the purposes of the Act. Such donations are not required to be disclosed and are not subject to the prohibitions attaching to certain types of donations under the Act (see part 5 of these guidelines).

B. As stated in paragraph 4, a donation made to a member of a local authority or a candidate at a local election which is not passed to the party and acknowledged as such, will not be regarded as a donation to the party.

C. Membership fees/Affiliation fees paid by trade unions to political parties are not donations. Other contributions, however, made by trade unions, e.g., during election times, are regarded as donations.

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