Veteran criminal Gerry “The Monk” Hutch is in line for reimbursement of almost all of his €11,282 in expenses from his recent run as an independent candidate in the Dublin Central byelection.Hutch is among the candidates who have so far been certified for the reimbursement of €11,200 from the State, the maximum sum on offer to help cover campaign costs. Election winners and unsuccessful candidates who exceed a certain threshold of votes are able to get at least some of their campaign costs back from the State.Candidates must file expenditure and donation returns and supporting receipts and invoices to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) if they are to be reimbursed.Once Sipo is satisfied this documentation is complete and accurate it issues a reimbursement application to the candidate.Sipo then certifies completed applications and it is the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) that ultimately makes the payments to candidates. A DPER statement said that all election candidate election expenses certified by Sipo and received by the department to the end of July 2026 have been processed, with payments issued. It added: “Certified expenses received by DPER from SIPO in August may still be undergoing processing or awaiting the issue of payment.”A Sipo statement said that eight candidates in both constituencies where byelections were held in May can qualify for reimbursement of election expenses. The other candidates whose campaigns are thus far certified for the reimbursement are Cllr Helen Ogbu and Ruth O’Dea of the Labour Party – who ran in Galway West and Dublin Central respectively – and independent Cllr Thomas Welby, another Galway West candidate.In Galway West the others that can qualify for reimbursement are the winner, Seán Kyne (Fine Gael); and unsuccessful candidates Cllr Noel Thomas (Independent Ireland); Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich (Social Democrats); Cllr Cillian Keane (Fianna Fáil); Mark Lohan (Sinn Féin); and Cllr Mike Cubbard (Independent). The other candidates that can qualify for reimbursement in Dublin Central are the winner, Daniel Ennis (Social Democrats); and unsuccessful candidates Cllr Janice Boylan (Sinn Féin); Cllr Janet Horner (Green Party); Cllr Ray McAdam (Fine Gael); Cllr Malachy Steenson (Independent); and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin (People Before Profit). Sipo said: “We are currently in the various stages of receiving and processing the various applications and this process will continue for a number of months.”An expenses statement filed with Sipo shows costs of €11,282 during Hutch’s byelection campaign. This included €1,732 on election posters. Other items of expenditure were a combined €9,150 for two social media consultants and another €400 on “radio equipment”.Gardaí in court have described Hutch as the figurehead of the Hutch crime gang involved in the Kinahan-Hutch feud. He was cleared of the murder of David Byrne during the Hutch gang attack at the Regency Hotel in 2016 but the Special Criminal Court said it was satisfied Hutch was in control of the three AK-47 rifles used in the attack.Hutch was one of the first targets of the Criminal Assets Bureau in the 1990s and eventually settled, for unpaid taxes on criminal income, for more than £1 million. Of the other candidates certified for reimbursement the Labour Party spent some €54,266 on Ogbu’s bid for the Dáil and €25,507 on O’Dea’s campaign, a total of €79,773 across both constituencies.Welby declared €15,930 in spending during his Galway West campaign. Overall returns to Sipo show spending by political parties and individual candidates came to a total of around €570,000 during the byelections. Fianna Fáil spent over €96,000 across the two constituencies but achieved dismal results.Sinn Féin spent €88,813 during the two campaigns.Fine Gael spent €45,309 on Kyne’s successful Galway West campaign and €32,041 on McAdam’s unsuccessful election bid in Dublin Central. Its spending across the two constituencies came to €77,350.A total of €68,708 was spent by the Social Democrats including funding from party headquarters and money raised by two individual campaigns.This includes €36,044 spent on Ennis’s campaign and €32,663 spent on Nic Fhionnlaoich’s campaign. Independent Ireland declared spending of €30,130 on Noel Thomas’s Dáil bid in Galway West.