Election Expenditure

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

Questions (422, 423)

Barry Cowen

Question:

422. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total cost of each by-election held from 2010 to date in 2016 in tabular form. [34572/16]

View answer

Barry Cowen

Question:

423. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total cost of each recount in any by-election held from 2010 to 2016 in tabular form. [34573/16]

View answer

Written answers

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

I propose to take Questions Nos. 422 and 423 together.

The approximate costings for all by-elections since 2010 are set out in the table below. Four of the by-elections were held on the same day as another Election or Referendum and therefore the by-election costs reflect savings from a sharing of people and facilities (these are marked with an asterisk in the table) i.e. the Dublin West by-election was held with the Presidential Election in 2011; the Dublin West and Longford-Westmeath by-elections were both held with the 2014 European and Local Elections; the Carlow-Kilkenny by-election was held with the 2015 Referendums on the Marriage Equality Bill and the Age for Presidency. As a result of changes to the free postage arrangements for candidates (whereby one item of election material was sent to each household in the constituency rather than to each person on the Electoral Register, where possible), there were also additional savings in costs for the 2014 by-elections in Dublin West, Longford-Westmeath, Dublin South-West and Roscommon-South Leitrim and also for the 2015 Carlow-Kilkenny by-election.

There were no recount costs with respect to the by-elections as follows.

Month/Year	By-Election	Approximate Cost
November, 2010	Donegal South-West	€0.514m
February, 2011	Dublin West	€0.424m*
March, 2013	Meath East	€0.473m
May, 2014	Dublin West	€0.303m*
May, 2014	Longford Westmeath	€0.397m *
October, 2014	Dublin South-West	€0.547m
October, 2014	Roscommon-South Leitrim	€0.564m
October, 2014	Seanad By-Election	€0.007m
May, 2015	Carlow-Kilkenny	€0.501*
November, 2015	Seanad By-Election	€0.007m