Investigation into political donors reveals quarter of MLAs had gaps in funding of their election campaigns last year

There has been a lot of talk lately, in the light of the RHI scandal, about political donors. Unlike elsewhere in the UK, there is no transparency in Northern Ireland about who funds our political parties. In Northern Ireland, the legacy of the Troubles is used by some parties as a reason for not revealing the identities of donors. Others reject that as an excuse. But today we can reveal that - due to a loophole in the law - we can see who has been funding the election campaigns of all of our individual MLAs. Now this little chink of light shed onto political donations in this country can reveal that there were discrepancies in the electoral return forms across every political party in Northern Ireland. An investigation by The Detail - seen by the Nolan Show - reveals that a quarter of MLAs have gaps in the funding of their campaigns, sometimes running into thousands of pounds per MLA. The Electoral Commission say that under electoral law every penny spent must be accounted for. Yet one quarter of our MLAs failed to do this. Until The Detail's journalist Niall McCracken revealed this loophole in the law, practically no-one was aware that you, the public, could see this information. Stephen spoke to Niall McCracken and Sir Alistair Graham ,a former Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life at Westminster.