European political groups got €112,000 off Irish-based big tech and right-wingers

American technology giants based in Ireland as well as conservative groups have donated €111,700 to European political groups and their think-tanks since 2018.

A Sunday Independent analysis of annual declarations shows that Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Yelp have all used their Irish subsidiaries to make payments to European political groups that include Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

On the conservative side of politics, Gript Media, the company behind the John McGuirk-led online news platform, last year made a €18,000 donation to the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR).

Gript, which has a heavy focus on immigration stories, is co-owned by Niamh Uí Bhriain and Evelyn Porter, who have both campaigned for a restrictive abortion regime in Ireland.

The Gript donation to the ECR, whose president is Italian premier Giorgia Meloni, helped fund a conference at the Lyrath Hotel in Kilkenny, last November. That event was attended by Niall Boylan, the talk show host who has declared his candidacy for the Independent Ireland party, Michael Collins, who is now party leader, and Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath.

The conference included contributions from Irish farming organisations and from journalists such as Cormac Lucey, who is now running as an independent local election candidate.

In a statement, Mr McGuirk said Gript’s donation helped the ECR hold its first conference in Ireland.

“Gript wished to support this event as we saw it as an opportunity to present Irish concerns about agriculture, particularly the impact of European regulations and environmental measures, directly to European MEPs while also giving those MEPs the chance to discuss the steps that are being taken at European level to safeguard farmers’ livelihoods,” he said.

He added that the event was an “opportunity to build relationships with many of the farming voices in Ireland deeply concerned about the direction of travel at the European level”.

Mr McGuirk said the €18,000 was a small percentage of the event’s overall costs and was not the only event supported by Gript last year. He said it provided between €25,000 and €30,000 to a conference organised by Free Speech Ireland over concerns about planned hate speech reforms.

The Edmund Burke Institute, a registered “right-of-centre” charity that says its main purpose is education and outreach, also provided €18,000 to the ECR for its Kilkenny conference. Gary Kavanagh, a director of the charity is also the deputy editor of Gript.

The European Christian Political Movement, the EU grouping that includes senator Rónán Mullen’s Human Dignity Alliance party as its Irish affiliate, received a total of €9,500 from the Pro Life Campaign.

American tech companies based in Ireland are the other donors to have been active in the last six years.

Google Ireland and Apple Distribution International this year both donated €18,000 to the European Liberal Forum (ELF), the think-tank of the ALDE political grouping of which Fianna Fáil is a member.

Meta Platforms Ireland gave €18,000 to the ALDE political group in 2022 as part of its participation in its annual conference hosted in Dublin. Yelp Ireland also gave the maximum permitted €18,000 to ALDE in 2018.

Most donations to EU political groups or think-tanks appear to emanate from firms headquartered in Belgium. Included in this was a €2,400 donation to Fianna Fáil’s ALDE group from Philip Morris Benelux in 2018. Philip Morris is a tobacco giant.

In 2018, the ALDE group took in €206,000 in direct corporate donations with Disney, Uber, Microsoft, Google, Bayer and Deloitte all making donations in excess of €10,000 from their Belgian or Dutch subsidiaries.

​Apple Distribution International in Ireland gave €12,000 in 2022 to the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies (WMCES). This is the think-tank of the European People’s Party (EPP), the European grouping of which Fine Gael is a member.

Microsoft Belgium gave €18,000 to the WMCES in 2019 and €12,000 in 2020. Google Belgium made a €18,000 contribution to WMCES in 2020.

Google said it took part in two WMCES events and paid event sponsorship fees with other corporate sponsors. Its payments to the ELF “relate to standard corporate membership fees, in line with other corporate partners”.

Irish parties pay annual membership fees to their political groupings. Fine Gael said its EPP fee was €38,000 for 2024, up from €18,481 in 2018.

“The EPP is the biggest European political party and Fine Gael, as a founding member, has considerable influence at international level due to our membership,” it said.

Fianna Fáil said it does not fundraise for ALDE. Since 2018, it said its average annual contribution to ALDE was €10,900.

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