Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I refer specifically to expenditure of the Minister's Department and the Department of Finance. The Secretary General of the Department of Finance came before the Committee of Public Accounts on a special section in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report about returning officers' fees in previous elections, some of whom five years after the election had never filled their complete statement of affairs. Some of them - I will not name the constituencies - spent €30,000, €40,000 or €50,000 in excess of a returning officer in an identical neighbouring constituency. We, in the Committee of Public Accounts, looked at this. Obviously, that is the cost of polling day, but the cost of the election is borne by the taxpayer through the Minister's Department. I refer only to this, not to anything to do with candidates' expenditure.

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