Ivana Bacik (Independent)

The Minister has struck the right balance in changing the thresholds. The streamlining of thresholds is long overdue. The Minister referred to the rather bizarre threshold of €126.97, which is a throwback to the £100 threshold. The common sense changes are long overdue.

Senator Aideen Hayden stated we must ensure we do not impose unduly onerous and utterly pointless requirements on accounting units of political parties. We ought to be sensible about what is required. The Senator also referred to third parties. In recent weeks, we noted a well-financed intervention by third parties in the political process through advertising campaigns, including billboard advertisements. Until now, there has not been enough regulation of donations to third parties, which are really political donations because they seek to fund interventions in the political process by bodies that are not subject to the same level of regulation as political parties. We need to consider this further.

I have raised in this House the fact that the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland extends only to commercial advertising. Where people have complaints to make about non-commercial bodies advertising in commercial spaces, the authority has no remit to impose any sanction or to adjudicate on complaints. This is an area of regulation I have raised with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte. It is good to see that the thresholds have been changed. There is unanimous support for this in the House.