Where do Sinn Fein get their money?

magpie

Well, they get €700,000 a year from the Irish taxpayer for starters:

Sinn Féin receives direct funding of almost €1m a year from the British and Irish governments, by far the party's largest source of funding.

Unusually among political parties, Sinn Féin is in an extremely healthy financial position, according to unpublished accounts seen by The Sunday Business Post.

As the party faces accusations of complicity in the stg£26.5 million Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, activists can reasonably protest that they don't have to rob banks - they have enough money already.

The party has total reserves of €2.3 million, which includes more than €400,000 cash in the bank. It recorded a surplus - a profit - of more than €270,000 in 2003, the last year for which the party has compiled figures.

Exchequer funding from the Republic and the North is the major contributor to the party's finances. In a year when it cost €1.7 million to run the central party organisation north and south, Sinn Féin received almost €1 million in direct funding from the British and Irish governments.

It got a further €580,000 in contributions from its elected representatives - out of salaries paid from the public purse.

The party received about stg»150,000 (€213,000) in direct funding from the Northern exchequer in 2003.

In Dublin, the party receives government funding under two schemes - the Electoral Acts and the party leaders' allowance.

In 2003, the party received almost €700,000 in total from the Irish government.

A substantial funding source for the party is the salaries of its public representatives, which are paid into the party funds. Representatives are then paid an allowance by the party - amounting to the average industrial wage, according to a spokesman - although they can keep their expenses.

In 2003, Sinn Féin's Belfast office received stg£333,000 (almost €470,000) in contributions from its Assembly members, according to its Northern accounts. In the same year, the Dublin office received more than €100,000 from the party's elected representatives.

Sinn Féin received good news recently when the British government decided to extend Northern Ireland's exemption from a ban on foreign political donations for a further two years.

The party receives hundreds of thousands of euro in foreign donations every year, principally from the US and Australia.

Foreign political donations are banned in the Republic and Britain, but the North is exempt from the legislation. John Spellar, the Northern Ireland minister, recently wrote to Sinn Féin to inform the party that the exemption would be extended for at least another two years.

Sinn Féin insists that it does not spend any money it raises abroad in the Republic, as this would be in breach of the law. However, it is free to use the money in the North.

The Standards in Public Office Commission - which polices the political process and to which annual declarations must be made by all parties - says that it accepts the declarations made by all parties at face value. It has never had cause to audit any party, a spokesman said last week.

Sinn Féin received a second boost when the Attorney General agreed with its view that the Standards in Public Office Commission could only police the 26-county part of the organisation.

Although it is run as a single 32-county organisation, the party produces three sets of audited accounts - for the 32 counties, for the six counties and for the 26 counties.

All sets of the 2003 accounts have been seen by The Sunday Business Post. However, the accounts only relate to the central party organisation.

Local units of the party are free to pursue their own fundraising and to spend such funds locally.

Political opponents of Sinn Féin, who frequently - and without evidence - accuse Sinn Féin of being funded from the proceeds of IRA criminality, point out that, were the party to receive illicit funds, the money would be spent locally. It would hardly show up in the accounts.

In response, the party says that the accounts are open to inspection by the Revenue Commissioners and by the Standards in Public Office Commission. And Sinn Féin reveals a good deal more about its finances than many of its rivals.

Nevertheless, examination of the Sinn Féin accounts and comparison between the different versions reveals some anomalies.

For instance, the 32-county accounts show an entry for ‘admin expenses 6 counties' in the amount of €50,000. However, in the six-county accounts, the entry for ‘admin expenses' is stg£90,000 - or €126,000.

Comparison between ‘donations' declared north and south shows about €27,000 unaccounted for. The 32-county figure is €464,000; the six-county figure is €334,000 (stg£240,000), yet the donations the party has declared to the Standards Commission in Dublin amount to €103,000.

However, the accounts are straightforward in the main, and show that the party's greatest strength is its ethic of voluntarism - it costs very little to run.

Wages and salaries cost just €550,000 in 2003, because, the party says, it pays its employees €500 per week.

By comparison, in 2002, the last year for which figures are available, the Labour Party spent €900,000 on wages and salaries.

Fine Gael, which produces three-year consolidated accounts, spent more than €2.5 million on salaries, plus another €2.2 million staffing the leader's office and the press office - or almost €1.6 million a year.

Sinn Féin's political opponents murmur about under-the-table payments, but there is no evidence to back this up.

Party officials and representatives show no evidence that they live anything other than relatively frugal lifestyles.

Opponents say that Sinn Féin is consistently better funded than other parties and that, no matter how rigorous any audit is, a party that supported a campaign of violence, some of whose members were convicted of crimes including murder, would hardly be likely to baulk at violating campaign finance laws.

“We're a party with a core of voluntarism,” said Sinn Féin finance director Des Mackin. “We don't have to pay anyone to put up posters. We don't have to pay people to do anything.”

COMMENT: Does anyone else find it ironic that a political organisation which has been described as 'less than 100% committed to democracy' should be funded so heavily by the democratically elected governments of 2 countries?

Also, in the event of a united Ireland they'll be €230,000 a year worse off.

Villain

I thought you were meant to comment on an article not just post it??

Villain

Sinn Fein's books are open to scrutiny and they fund raise alot, also as Des Mackin pointed out their expenses in relation to elections are quite low because of the hardworking people on the ground. They also raise quite abit of money in America as the article below shows:

By Sean O’Driscoll

SINN Fein President Gerry Adams made nearly $40,000 for his party from two U.S. speaking engagements last March, figures released by the U.S. Treasury Department show.

The money is part of nearly $600,000 earned by the party in the six months up to the start of May. Adams picked up $18,750 from a professional speaker’s company, the Washington Speakers Bureau, who hired him to speak at Quinnipiac University on Monday, March 15.

The next day, March 16, Adams made $20,000 for the party from a speaking engagement at Notre Dame University.

The latest figures given to the Treasury Department by the party’s U.S. fundraising arm, Friends of Sinn Fein, to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, show that the party also received tens of thousands of dollars from unions that bought tables at Sinn Fein events.

Donations included $5,000 each from the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, the Southern California District Council of Laborers and the Laborers International Union of North America.

A number of labor groups also made donations, including $15,000 from the Midwest Region Laborers’ Political League, $5,000 from the Laborers’ Political League in Washington, another $5,000 from the same group’s education fund, $5,000 from the Chicago Vicinity Laborer’s District Council and $2,500 from the Massachusetts Laborers’ District Council.

A number of political campaigns also gave smaller contributions, including $250 each from the Committee to Elect Steven Tolman to Congress and $250 from the Committee to Elect Robert Creedon to State, both in Massachusetts.

The party also collected sizable donations from businesses, including $5,000 each from Island Architectural Woodwork in Ronkonkoma, New York, and Eurotech in New York City, which has been a major contributor to the party in the past.

The accounts show that Friends of Sinn Fein sent $359,867.93 to the party back in Ireland, $111,313.41 of which was spent on printing costs, $112,003 on construction, $55,576 on research and $24,962 on advertising.

When the money sent back to Ireland is included, total expenditure reached $650,804, with $290,036 spent in the U.S. U.S. expenditure included $156,761.75 on travel and lodging, $10,148 on miscellaneous expenses and $34,881 on advertising.

Taken from http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irishinamerica/news/sinnfeinraise.asp

sceptre

irish1 wrote:

I thought you were meant to comment on an article not just post it??

Indeed. Usual rules - 24 hours to comment or it gets recycled.

sceptre

U.S. expenditure included $156,761.75 on travel and lodging

Even at business-class, that sounds like a Mel Gibson style of travelling[1]. I'm not implying they fiddle the figure but what kind of entourage do they bring with them? They're not paying for journo seats and booze as well are they?



[1]Mel has lots of kids, being a hard-core Caflick who doesn't believe anything unless God tells him personally via dreams (may not be true). Travelling from Oz to the UK or US he bundles all the kids into business class and books out all the other seats so they've the entire section to themselves (certainly is true)

Villain

Joke *Probably costs a bit for all those fake passports *

I agree that does sound excessive but you'd really need to see a breakdown.

A Dub in Glasgo

The major points taken from the article above

1. All salaries for elected representatives are channelled into SF funds and those representatives get the Average Industrial Wage from SF

2. SF relies on people in the party and supporters to do a lot of the legwork for various campaigns. Those people do not get paid therefore it does not cost SF as much as other political parties to conduct their business.


Hardly earth shattering news as most people would have known these points all ready

chewy

funny that though they get funding for being a party in the uk and the republic of ireland.. unique?

does gerry get a grant for being head of the party twice?

who is the top man/woman in the south?

sceptre

So I've moved all the irrelevant stuff here. Given that so many people on both sides asppear not to want to talk about the actual topic at hand I might just leave it here for the few on both sides who want to talk about the topic at hand.

Villain

The Village Magazine published an interview this week where Vincent Browne questioned Gerry Adams on many issues, including this one.

Adams raised the issue of the village magazine article on december 30th which alleged that Sinn Fein was the beneficiary of major criminality on the part of the IRA. “I haven’t seen any money. I’m really big time annoyed at these allegations about Sinn Fein having all these millions and so in. None of this has stood up. If I wanted to I could make money and I don’t think that is an immodest thing to say.

But I and others in Sinn Fein have chosen to do other things. I am not saying all republicans are saints, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not saying that former republicans have not fallen into criminal activity not by any stretch of the imagination but I just think that people can write this stuff with no basis whatever in fact. I am an industrial wage around £1,200 a month. The salaries we get as MPs, TDs and MLAs all go into the party and we are then paid the same as everyone else. The suggestion that we have hordes of money is quite simply not true.”

VB ” From where does Sinn Fein get its funds?”

Adams “From America, from Ireland and from state subventions.

VB “ Are Sinn Fein accounts open to scrutiny?

Adams “Yes we have made them available to journalists and if you want to see them that can be arranged.

Mighty_Mouse

Whats the alternative? Leave republicans out of the political process? ................yep that's worked well before!

or even better, create obstacles to Republicans fully embracing political struggle as a way forward...............yep that will work

or even better again, penalise them for pursueing a political struggle..........very good.

Any more suggestions while your at it magpie.

ps.

Try and stay this side of "manic raving" while you begin to discuss (yet again) your problems with republicans.

Keyzer

Northern Bank are supposed to be very generous when it comes to Sinn Fein....

sceptre

Mighty_Mouse wrote:

Whats the alternative? Leave republicans out of the political process? ................yep that's worked well before!

Funny, no-one suggested leaving SF out of the "political process till you did". Magpie's posted something about the money source, he doesn't appear to be a supporter of SF. Irish1 has responded with some info about where the money comes from, he appears to be a supporter of SF. He left the un-needed rant out.

Keyzer wrote:

Northern Bank are supposed to be very generous when it comes to Sinn Fein....

See the stuff I already moved out to the recycle bin?

If this was a test, irish1 would have passed (not rising to trolling, not going dramatically off-topic at a whim). No-one else would have.

Test over, you can all babble on incessantly about whatever you normally do now.

magpie

No-one else would have

I demand a re-test based on being forced to post unnecessary commentry by barrack-room lawyers.

You will also notice that Irish1's text-book response is in fact a lengthy quote from an article with no comment other than 'Gerry adams said this'.

Villain

magpie wrote:

I demand a re-test based on being forced to post unnecessary commentry by barrack-room lawyers.

You will also notice that Irish1's text-book response is in fact a lengthy quote from an article with no comment other than 'Gerry adams said this'.

Ah but i didn't start a thread with the article and I did comment in previous posts :-)

magpie

No comment.

Keyzer

See the stuff I already moved out to the recycle bin?

[\QUOTE]

I didnt bother reading it....

jhegarty

chewy wrote:

funny that though they get funding for being a party in the uk and the republic of ireland.. unique?

does gerry get a grant for being head of the party twice?

who is the top man/woman in the south?

i get the feeling they would be the last party to divide at the border ....