EU Political Advertising Transparency in Ireland

The EU has a regulation 2024/900 that political advertising services need to publish details of political ads they create and their targeting. 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. A timeline suggested a launch in April 2026.

(64) To ensure the publication of the information about online political advertising required under this Regulation, and effective access to it by all interested individuals, it is necessary that the Commission should establish and ensure, directly or by entrusting this responsibility to a management authority, the management of a public repository for all online political advertisements, the European repository for online political advertisements.

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 since Octoer 2024 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 most of the Irish Political Parties 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, highlighting and explaining the data as well as speaking with the parties and the media in a more professional way then 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 strangely 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. Its not beyond any Independent political candidate to publish list of Transparency Notices but almost none have so far and the Irish Electoral Commission is not forcing them to.

Irish Political Parties

https://transparency.finegael.ie/
https://labour.ie/transparency/
https://transparency.fiannafail.ie/
https://sinnfein.ie/transparency/ Sinn Fein at Advocate Digital
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, they could be using their parties TTPA page.

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.

Commercial repositories platforms

The Taurus Expanse UG & Co. KG - Munich, Germany · EU-hosted
Politicaladvertising.eu SMIT. Digitaal vakmanschap
Polads.eu STEP Network with a number of Danish media outlets.
Adfairly.eu/ Teamfluence OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia
TTPA check.eu Teamfluence
Advocate Digital Ad Campaign Library by electica.io/

EU (non-Irish) Transparency Notices

Trying to find non-Irish Transparency Notices, obvious they wouldnt be in English, Im using 2024/900 AND TTPA to search.
Profil.at
Austrian Newspaper form to report TTPA violations?
EU Register of Legal Representatives for Non-EU Political Advertising Providers

Non-Irish Political Party Transparency notices

The Green party of Lower Saxony TTPA-VO Use "Transparenzbekanntmachung gemäß Artikel 11 der Verordnung (EU) 2024/900 über die Transparenz und das Targeting politischer Werbung (TTPA-VO)." to search for more.

European Political Groups

Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) No
Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament No
Patriots for Europe Group No
European Conservatives and Reformists Group No
Renew Europe Group Yes
Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance No
The Left group in the European Parliament - GUE/NGL No
Europe of Sovereign Nations Group No

European Political Parties

European Left No
European Christian Political Party No
European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet No
Europe of Sovereign Nations No
European Green Party No
European Free Alliance One
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party No
European Democratic Party No
European Conservatives and Reformists Party No
Patriots.eu No
European People’s Party No
Party of European Socialists No

EU Repository

Will there be a EU repository by the time of our presumed next election to be held no later then 2030
A timeline suggested a launch in April 2026.

Electoral Commission has a useful seminar video and powerpoint on TTPA.
Irish Media and Online Regulator
Data Protection Commission

European Union (Political Advertising) Regulations 2025Repeals Part 4 of the Electoral Reform Act 2022

Irish Times saying US was transporting personal weapons of troops who were not on the plane?

Rising number of foreign troops passing through Ireland Jun 6, 2019, 03:00
Craig Hughes, Pat Leahy

I downloaded the second Tableau Public charting software workbook and exported the .csv "Path of foreign troops through Ireland". It seemed strange that there were many records that described "personal weapons for troops" but the same row listed 0 troops, the data was saying it was transporting personal weapons of troops who were not on the plane? That not how it works as far as I know.



Shannonwatch had previously FOI'd similar info and had a file of flights from 2014/2015.

So I compared flight CMB502 in 2015 which is listed in both files. The earlier FOI says there was 226 troops on that flight.




Craig Hughes tweeted me a screenshot of the data he has...

Here's a screen shot of that reference number from the raw data I received from the Dept, as you can see troops is blank, so an error in digitising (accidentally or intentionally?!) pic.twitter.com/4y1k8TSlHd

— Craig Hughes (@hughescraig90) June 16, 2019

The journalist has already acknowledge (on twitter) that there may be a problem with the information that the department supplied, but if the data is incorrect then perhaps the article needs to be reviewed. I also sent this query to Shannonwatch to see if they thought that there is a problem the data given to the Irish Times.