The EU has a regulation 2024/900 that political advertising services need to publish details of political ads they create. Transparency & Targeting of Political Advertising Regulation or TTPA. As far as I understand the onus is on the political advertising services to publish the transparency notices but Irish political parties or 'sponsors' have begun to publish Transparency Notices as the EU parliament has not yet created a repository for EU political ads. Its not beyond any Independent political candidate to publish a but almost have have so far and the Irish Electoral Commission is not forcing them to.
The big social media companies Meta and Google have chosen not to the follow the EU regulations because they claim they are too onerous so they aren’t taking political ads and TikTok says it never took political ads (directly). The political advertising transparency law equaly applies to physical ads, posters, leafets, 'swag' etc.
I only discovered these Transparency Notices by chance as there is a by-election occuring in 2 Irish parliamentary constituences at the moment, I can't find anyone outside those directly involved, having made known these Transparency Notices were being published. As soon as I found them I tried to tell every journalist and digital transparency researcher I knew. Liz Carolan of Digital Action on her newsletter The Briefing quickly began analysising, higlighting and explaining the data as well as speaking with the parties and the media in a more professional way that I can.
We finally know how much money shapes Irish elections Irish Times - 20 May 2026.
How you can monitor what candidates are spending on the by-elections RTE - News At One - 20 May 2026.
The Journal also analyised the data but didn't explicity mention that no large social media company is taking political ads at the moment and thats way there is almost zero digital spending in these by-elections.
All the political parties represented in the Irish Parliament have begun to publish transparency notices in regard to their mostly physical ad purchases.
Irish Political Parties
https://transparency.finegael.ie/
https://labour.ie/transparency/
https://transparency.fiannafail.ie/
https://sinnfein.ie/transparency/
https://www.socialdemocrats.ie/transparency/
https://www.greenparty.ie/transparency
https://aontu.ie/transparency/
https://www.independentireland.ie/transparency
https://www.pbp.ie/transparency/
By-election candidates
I found 2 no others
https://www.garrityforgalway.ie/transparency/
https://www.irishpeople.org/transparency
Newspaper/Advertising Groups are also publishing Transparecy Notices, there one I've found so far are,
https://www.jcdecaux.ie/transparency
https://www.mediahuis.ie/menu-legal/ttpa/
https://agrilandmedia.ie/agriland-media-ttpa/
https://pages.farmersjournal.ie/ttpa/
https://clarechampion.ie/wp-content/uploads/
One could use https://www.mediaownership.ie/ to search for more.
I searched for Irish MEPs publishing Transparency Notices only found 3 so far,
https://cynthianimhurchu.ie/transparency-notice/
https://lynnboylan.ie
https://ninacarberrymep.com/transparency/
https://www.barryandrews.ie
https://www.reginadoherty.com/
Luke 'Ming' Flanagan
Kathleen Funchion
https://billykelleher.ie
http://www.ciaranmullooly.com/
https://seankelly.eu
https://www.aodhan.ie
https://mariawalsh.eu/transparencynotice/
Barry Cowen
https://michaelmcnamaratd.com
I also search for Transparency Notices for European Parliament Political Groups and Parties. None have and I can't even find any companies that have posted Transparency Notices for ads those party or groups have sponored.
Will there be a EU repository by the time of our presumed next election to be held no later then 2030?
Electoral Commission has a useful seminar video and powerpoint on TTPA.
Irish Media and Online Regulator
Data Protection Commission
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