Dr. Elaine Byrne:

Yes, that is a really good point. I am aware that right across political parties individuals would have self-financed their campaigns considerably. There are people who are still paying off credit union loans and things like that. This begs the question as to whether the political system is predisposed to attracting people of financial means rather than people who may have less access to money, which prevents people from particular areas of life from entering politics as they may wish to do. The answer to that question is "No" because it is about what is disclosed to the Standards in Public Office Commission. What I examined were the facts on the Standards in Public Office Commission's annual register over ten years. These figures were not put on it. As I have stressed throughout, all this can do is infer patterns. It is not a complete picture of how political parties or political individuals have funded their campaigns, which is why I argue that one perhaps might need to have an electoral commission or an independent commission to look at how politics in general is funded to address the questions the Deputy has just raised.