01/06/04 - Report on expenditure of the Party Leaders Allowance (2003)

PART 4 Statements of Expenditure and Public Auditors' Reports received in respect of 2003

A Statement of Expenditure and Public Auditor's Report was received by the Standards Commission from the parliamentary leaders of all of the seven qualifying parties by 30 April 2004. As the Statements of Expenditure provided by the parliamentary leaders of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, The Progressive Democrats and The Labour Party did not, under certain of the expenditure headings, contain sufficient information concerning the specific items to which the expenditure was applied, the parliamentary leaders of those parties were asked to provide more information relating to those headings. The relevant information was subsequently provided.

The Standards Commission has considered the Statements of Expenditure and Public Auditors' Reports and is satisfied that:

a) they do not disclose any expenditure which does not comply with subsection (5) of section 1.10 of the Act, and

b) they are adequate and are not inappropriate.

Details of the allowances paid to the parliamentary leaders and an outline of expenditure from the allowances in 2003 are contained in Table 1 attached. Table 2 provides a breakdown of expenditure from the allowances.

If funding in respect of a particular year is not spent in that year, it must be accounted for in the statement(s) for the year in which it is actually spent.

A copy of this report will be laid before each House of the Oireachtas.

The Statements of Expenditure and Public Auditors' Reports furnished to the Standards Commission may be inspected and copied by members of the public at the Standards Commission's offices, 18 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, on Mondays to Fridays from 10.00 am to 12.30 pm and from 2.30 pm to 4.00 pm. The information is also available, in summary form, on the Standards Commission's website www.sipo.ie.

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