Counting the cost of getting to Europe

COLOURFUL East Galway entrepreneur Declan Ganley spent almost 21 times more than Scariff barrister and part-time farmer, Michael McNamara trying to get elected to the European Parliament in the North-West constituency last year.

The chairman and founder of pan-European party, Libertas, spent €195,154 on advertising, publicity, posters, election material, office and stationary,  transport and travel, market research and campaign workers, according to a report prepared by the Standards in Public Office Commission.
It revealed that Mr McNamara, who secured 12,744 first preference votes only spent a total of €9,320 on his election campaign, which included €781 on advertising and €8,199 on other election material. Mr McNamara told the commission he received no financial donations from members of the public.
Despite Mr Ganley’s lavish expenditure on election material, he failed to secure a place in the EU parliament securing 84,277 votes before he bowed out in the final and sixth count.
Pat “The Cope” Gallagher, who spent €110,866 on his campaign, collected the second seat, as sitting Independent MEP Marian Harkin, who spent €56,625, topped the poll with 120,930 votes. Jim Higgins (FG) got the third and final seat with 120,185 votes after he had spent €54,054 during the election. The 13 candidates spent €775,867 in total during the campaign.
The former Libertas chairman declared to the commission that he had received no individual donation. The official returns did include a €2,500 cheque for Paschal Mooney from Margaret Forde, Ennis.  
Insisting that the Libertas had complied with all the requirements of the commission, Mr Ganley admitted that the party did engage in fundraising and donations were received for the party during the election campaign.
He said that funding was a huge challenge for the party, which was trying to run a Europe-wide campaign.
Unlike main political parties who have a recognisable brand name and high voter recognition, he stressed that independent candidates had to spend a lot of money trying to get their own message across.
“The North West Constituency was one of the most difficult to secure election given the size of the place and the number of candidates. There is a reluctance to change for most people unless someone has a brilliant new idea or is excellent at getting their own individual message across to a large number of people.
“It was difficult for people to take the time to study the effects of the Lisbon Treaty. Most people ended up listening to soundbites on radio and television, reading the odd article and listening to what their family and friends were saying before they made a decision on who to vote for,” he said.
He has ruled out a return to contest a Dáil election in the future, claiming the power has now shifted largely to Brussels and what national parliaments can do in fiscal and monetary terms is very limited.
“I put myself before the people in the North-West constituency, I wasn’t successful. I have now moved on, I have no regrets and I am now focusing on some very exciting business developments,” he said.
Despite the disparity in spending, Mr McNamara is opposed to a cap on election spending  and defended the right of people to make donations to any candidate regardless of whether they were wealthy or not, or belonged to a large political party.
However, he expressed concern about the amount of coverage given to him and independent candidates by some media outlets compared with Mr Ganley on the basis that he was conducting a bigger campaign in the run up to the election.
He declined to offer the amount of money he had spent as an excuse for not securing election and felt there were other factors that had  helped the successful candidates win a seat.
He claimed a lot more was spent on the campaign than the amount declared to the commission judging by the amount of posters and billboards posted by some candidates.