BOTH FINE GAEL AND Fianna Fáil spent thousands of euros in the run up to the general election last year on Facebook advertising.

According the Standards in Public Office report, Fianna Fáil spent nearly €24,000 on Facebook advertising.

https://www.facebook.com/fiannafail/photos/a.10150643735250133.686923.222629035132/10156526514145133/?type=3&theater

Fine Gael also targeted voters online, with expenditure costings listing two large spends on social media advertising of €42,468 and €93,515.

The party also spent €6,521 on Twitter advertising.

Social media advertising for Fine Gael. Source: Sipo

https://www.facebook.com/FineGael/photos/a.411453218210.184878.264172043210/10153886969743211/?type=3&theater

The Labour Party spent €17,670.59 on Facebook ads, while Renua spent €10,231 on its ‘Get Out the Vote’ campaign. It also spent €172 to target students with Facebook ads.

The Social Democrats spent over €1,300 on Facebook.

However, while the spend on online ads has increased, the two largest political parties continue to spend a lot of cash on newspaper adverts during a general election.

Fianna Fáil spent €27,393.66 on newspaper ads, however these costings also include some expenditure on billboards, bus backs, bus stop ads. Fine Gael spent a total of €71,257 on newspaper advertisements.

Other parties, such as Sinn Féin spent over €18,252 on advertising – with €13,887 going to the Irish Times.

AAA-PBP spent a total of €307.50 for an advert in Gay Community News.

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FF leader Micheál Martin on the campaign trail with Fiona O'Loughlin. Source: Rollingnews.ie

The Sipo report goes into great detail, cataloguing where every euro is spent.

It finds that over €416,000 was spent on election posters by ten political parties, with Fine Gael being the biggest spender.

It also reveals that Fianna Fáil spent €1,245 on make up services for press events.