Sinn Féin were Stormont's biggest overspenders in 2022
- Published
Sinn Féin spent over £300,000 more than it received last year, making it the largest overspender of Stormont's main political parties.
Latest figures from the Electoral Commission, external detail spending for the year ending 31 December.
Sinn Féin received £1,186,378 but spent £1,533,335 while the Ulster Unionists overspent by more than £160,000.
It is not unusual for political parties to record an overspend in years in which election campaigns are run.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Alliance Party overspent by £61,793 and £23,109 respectively.
The SDLP was the only main party which recorded an income greater than its expenditure last year.
Sinn Féin also recorded an overspend back in 2020 but in recent years the party has benefitted from millions of pounds in donations from a deceased donor.
Totalling more than £3m since the first donation in 2019, the money came from Billy Hampton, a former market trader who died in Pembrokshire in Wales in 2018.
His father Tim Hampton was a wealthy businessman who had significant commercial interests in the village of Fenstanton in Cambridgeshire in England.
When Billy Hampton's first donation of £1.5m was made it was understood to be the largest ever known donation to a Northern Ireland political party.
It has been reported that a further tranche of money, £100,000, was donated to Sinn Féin in July.
- Published3 June 2021
- Published11 September 2019
