Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister's response to our debate and look forward to the publication of the new Bill. A balance must be struck in this regard, and it is difficult. We are engaging in theoretical politics here but it is different in the real world.

On this section, regarding the private little groupings that seem to be funding the American presidential election, which were set up to circumvent whatever expenditure rules are in place in the United States - I think they are called super packs - and where private individuals can come together, not overtly to sell a candidate but to sell a concept and an ideology, do we need to ensure that such activities are regulated in our laws? The Minister is putting in place limits for corporate donations to individuals or political parties but is there a loophole under which a group of people trying to push an agenda or ideology can work outside the law? I do not expect the Minister to have an immediate answer but it is something we might need to examine because apparently the big thing in the United States currently is not what the political parties or the candidates are spending but the private groups which are clearly supporting a candidate or a party and circumventing the law by declaring themselves as interest or pressure groups. It is something the Minister's new Bill later in the year should address.