'Complex' Seanad election count took five days and cost more than €200,000
Ken Foxe
The Seanad election count cost Leinster House more than €200,000 with Oireachtas staff paid more than €96,000 including weekend and overtime payments.
The Oireachtas said employee costs for their work on the election came to more than €110,000, which included around €13,600 in indirect costs for ushers, catering and tech experts.
A separate sum of €96,734 was paid directly to 25 staff involved in counting votes, with the figure inflated significantly by the bank holiday weekend it took place on.
The Oireachtas said the Seanad election count ended up taking five days due to a unique set of rules that are characterised by their “complexity.”
They said 25 of their staff had been on hand to work on opening ballot boxes, sort and distribute votes, count and calculate the final results.
An information note said counting began on Thursday, January 30th, and ran all the way through to the following bank holiday Monday on February 3rd.
They said: “An election count payment was made to all election count staff for each of the five days worked. The payment reflected that the count was conducted over a bank holiday weekend.”
Leinster House ran up almost €93,000 in other costs for the vote, which included €8,800 worth of printing and postal charges of €22,500.
A pre-election request for funding to the Department of Public Expenditure said this included a huge operation mailing material to local authorities, nominating bodies, as well as sending ballot papers and return postage.
A further €11,400 was spent on legal advice with a senior counsel on hand throughout the count to offer guidance, according to records.
The funding application said the fee quoted for legal services was “€1,850 per day plus VAT [at] 23 percent.”
“Charge for 2020 was €1,750 plus VAT,” said a note from the returning officer.
The Oireachtas also spent €26,000 on livestreaming services saying there was big demand for people to watch proceedings online.
A request to part-fund the livestream said it would be a “valuable contribution to … public service objectives” and that the count centre in the member’s restaurant was limited in size.
A letter from the Seanad Returning Officer Martin Groves said: “[The] room is relatively small and access to the count centre will be significantly more restrictive than would be the case for Dáil, local and other elections.”
His letter said the count had been livestreamed in 2020 for the first time during the Covid-19 pandemic and there were 28,000 people who watched via the web page with 49,000 views on social media.
“I believe that these figures indicate a significant public interest in the Seanad election that goes well beyond those with a direct personal interest in the proceedings,” correspondence from Mr Groves in January said.
Other bills included €817 in taxi fares for count staff, €6,120 in catering costs, audio services with a bill of €12,769, and outsourced sign language interpretation that cost €3,998.
Asked about the expenditure, the Oireachtas said they had no further comment to make.
