Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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422. To ask 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]

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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423. To ask 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]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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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.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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424. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total cost of the general election held in February 2016 in tabular form. [34574/16]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The approximate cost of the General Election 2016 is €26.8m. This figure relates mainly to Returning Officer costs for the conduct of the poll and count, reimbursement of candidate expenses and also postal expenditure for the delivery of candidate election material and polling cards.