Head over to our T
Political Donations for 2008
Read more about: Democracy, Election Spending 
From the Corkman
Fianna Fail politicians have disclosed the highest proportion of donations at more than €94,000.
The Labour Party declared more than €40,000 and Fine Gael more than 24,000, while the Greens disclosed just €1,200 worth of donations.
Labour Senator Alan Kelly received the highest amount at more than €35,000, followed by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at €19,000, which relates to the use of property at St Luke’s in Dublin.
You can look at them yourself here.
Thanks Simon. At last, I’m enlightened…
There I was, a month ago, driving across the hills of Tipperary confronted at every turn in the road by Alan Kelly’s lavish media posters – ‘Put a Tipp man in for Munster’ or some other such execrable slogan – and pondering how, even on a Senator’s salary and expenses, Labour’s poster boy could afford such extravagant advertising so early in the European Elections campaign.
Now I know! €35k. More than any other individual politician in Leinster House. And he returned more than €5k in further donations, presumably because they came from ‘unsuitable’ donors or exceeded the limit for individual donations or whatever. Barack Obama’s legendary fundraising machine has nothing on our Alan.
Are some of the other donations that he let stand worthy of scrutiny, one wonders? As I said in an earlier post, that lad will go far!
He has donations also from A husband and wife and the husbands register company
More than that Simon, he lists some interesting support in the establishment of this war-chest, notably from the international developer and businessman, Bill McCabe. While the donation from LNC, the international property development company chaired by McCabe, was returned, another of McCabe’s interests, Oyster Technologies, which among other things has onshore drilling projects in the US, makes a significant donation. Bill McCabe was one of the prominent Irish guests at that famous Bill Clinton fundraising dinner in Dublin for Hillary’s campaign in November 2007, organised by Alan Kelly’s brother, Declan. The Dublin arm of Declan’s PR interests, Financial Dynamics, is also listed as a €1k donor to the war chest as, intriguingly, is the Lafferty Group founder, Michael Lafferty, whose company is an advisor to the international retail banking sector.
With all their cant and thunder about ‘developers’ and ‘bankers’ and ‘taxing the rich’ and implied guilt by association for any party or politician associated, however tangentially, with same, you have to wonder what the Labour Party leadership make of all this?
A quick flick around the net reveals some interesting background on Kelly’s supporters and the range fo their property, financial and other interests. Check out the following, for example:
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2005/05/15/story4839.asp
http://www.theoystercircle.com/experience_company_found.html
http://www.cancer.ie/news/news.php?newsID=201
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/mccabe-firm-buys-big-retail-centre-in-bremen-109440.html
http://www.arcl.ie/Press%20articles/Victora%20House%20acquisition%20-%20Property%20week.pdf
Hi Veronica your comment was caught by the spam filter. As it suspects anything with lots of links.