Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The processing of claims for election expenses involves the following steps.

In order to certify a reimbursement of a qualified candidate's election expenses, the Standards in Public Office (SIPO) Commission must have received the following documentation:

• completed election agent's election expenses statement/statutory declaration;
• completed national agent's election expenses statement/statutory declaration;
• supporting invoices, vouchers or receipts; and
• in the case of an unsuccessful candidate, the candidate's completed donation statement, statutory declaration and certificate of monetary donations.

When SIPO has received the relevant statutory documentation and is satisfied it is complete and accurate, it will issue a reimbursement application to the candidate. SIPO will not issue any application for a reimbursement of election expenses until the correctly completed documentation has been received.

On receipt of the completed application, SIPO will certify to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the amount which should be reimbursed to the candidate.

The Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (DPER) process the application and approve the reimbursement of election expenses. The Department of Finance then process the payments and the Central Bank issue payments to candidates by electronic funds transfer.

As of the week ending 21st November, DPER had received some 300 candidate expenses forms from SIPO. Further candidate expenses forms would be expected to be received from SIPO in due course.

Of the approximately 300 expense forms received from SIPO, DPER had approved some 290 for payment processing by the Department of Finance. Of the outstanding forms, half had been received in the preceding week and will have been processed by DPER within the coming days, while the remaining had been returned to SIPO requiring the candidate to amend details on the form. Deputies and their agents can directly contact SIPO or DPER and request an update on the processing stage of their candidate expenses form.