Clare’s general election candidates spent almost 155 thousand euro on their campaigns earlier this year.
Newly released figures show almost half of that was spent by the county’s Fine Gael candidates, while 3 independent candidates have claimed no expenses at all.
Current Fine Gael Senator Tony Mulcahy has claimed the highest amount of expenses of the 16 Clare candidates who ran in February’s General Election.
The Shannon representative has recorded over 31,000 of expenses, though over 20 thousand of this has been attributed to his party.
Senator Mulcahy’s party colleagues Pat Breen and Joe Carey claimed the next highest amounts at over 22 thousand euro each – the next highest was Fianna Fail’s John Hilery who claimed 18,700.
Successful candidates Michael McNamara and Timmy Dooley were the next, at 14- and 11.5 thousand respectively followed by the highest-spending non-party candidate James Breen.
These seven candidates were all entitled to be re-reimbursed up to 8,700 euro of their expenses – figures released by the Standards in Public Office Commission show Clare’s Fine Gael candidates have not drawn this money down.
Of the remaining candidates, Jim Connolly spent over 7,000 euro, while JJ McCabe and Brian Meaney both spent over 5,000.
Gerry Walshe spent over 3,000 euro, Brian Markham and Madeline McAleer just over 1,000 and Sarah Ferrigan, Ann Cronin and Patrick Brassel recorded no expenses for their campaigns.
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