Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 28 Nov 2006

Vol. 628 No. 3

Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006: Instruction to Committee.

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. Roche)

I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 125, it be an instruction to the committee to which the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006 may be recommitted in respect of certain amendments, that it has power to make provision in the Bill in relation to the Second Schedule to the Electoral Act 1992 in relation to the preparation of the register of electors.

The motion before the House concerns an amendment to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006. The amendment is not directly related to the issue of votes for prisoners, which is the main purpose of the Bill, but is a further measure to help ensure that this year's electoral registration process is as effective and comprehensive as possible. The need for revision of the electoral register has been discussed in this country for some years. Local authorities have legal responsibility for the electoral register and it has been clear for some time that the registration process did not receive the attention, priority and resources that it required.

All political parties have been long aware that the electoral register has not been as accurate as it should be and over the years efforts have been directed towards facilitating people getting on the register. However, less attention has been paid to removing people from the register who should not be on it. Until this year we did not have a system in place for removing from the register the names of people who had passed away.

The problems with this approach have been compounded by the enormous changes in Irish society. These include increased population mobility and unprecedented new development — we expect 90,000 new homes to be completed this year. There has also been a huge increase in the number of non-nationals living in Ireland — almost 300,000 people from the ten new EU member states came to work in Ireland since May 2004. We all know the dynamics of population change in the country.

A number of commentators estimated that the register could have contained an excess of names ranging from 300,000 to 800,000 or more. When we went to the polls in 2002 the number on the electoral register exceeded the number of adults in the population by about 300,000. While there may be debate about the quantum, there was no debate about the need for serious revision.

These problems have not arisen overnight and are not unique to Ireland. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance stated:

Voter registration is the most complex and controversial and often the least successful part of electoral administration. By its nature it involves collecting in a standardised format specific information from a vast number of voters and then arranging and distributing these data in a form that can be used at election time.

Against this background a package of measures to assist local authorities in their work on preparing the 2007-08 register were put in place this year. Additional funds were provided, a common set of guidelines agreed and a publicity campaign undertaken. I discovered, at the beginning of this process, that local authorities did not have a common approach to compiling the register. This has resulted in the most serious and sustained effort ever to improve the register, a registration campaign unprecedented in its extent and its intensity.

More than 1,500 fieldworkers carried out nationwide house to house calls, tens of thousands of households were visited more than once and where these visits did not establish the composition of the households, councils were instructed not to delete people without first sending a written notice warning of the dangers of being omitted from the register. As already mentioned the Government invested significant additional financial resources in the process, specifically €6 million to supplement local authority resources and another €1 million in a national media campaign. Public awareness of the electoral registration process has never been higher. Councils are now automatically notified of deaths in their areas, which did not previously happen and my Department instructed every council to set up a checking system on its website.

The results that emerged from this campaign are remarkable. Figures supplied by local authorities show that some 380,000 names have been added to the register since February. These are people who were not registered at their current address but have now been picked up by the recent campaign. The registration process will ensure that thousands of people who would not otherwise have been able to vote will be enfranchised at the next election.

In addition, there have been over 500,000 corrections and deletions since February. Included in this figure are people who have died, those who have moved house, those who were on the register more than once, and those with whom the councils were unable to establish contact. The occupants of this latter category, estimated at 170,000, or just over 5% of the population, have all been written to and councils are reporting a huge response to these notifications.

I must emphasise that persons who are still not on the register continue to have a number of options. This amendment gives people a further two weeks, until 9 December, to submit a claim to get on the register which means that people will have had from 1 November to 9 December to check and to get on the draft register. After this point local authorities will have until 2 January to make corrections to the register. County registrars will have until 12 January to make changes to the register and interested parties have a legal right to be heard in this regard. People may get on the supplement to the register up to 15 days before polling day. Nobody is being disenfranchised and every voter who wishes to get on the register between now and the 15th day before the general election may do so with relative ease.

There was no alternative to this approach in the short term. It was suggested, in good faith, that using the PPS number system or the census could have created an easier path but there are practical problems. The PPS system holds over 5 million numbers and does not necessarily capture voter residence. The census is a mandatory requirement on all citizens and it would not have been possible to run two collection processes simultaneously. It is subject to a seal of confidentiality between the State and the citizen which cannot casually be legislated away after the event. While superficially attractive, these suggestions would not have worked, at least not in the short term.

I believe we need to look at reform of the whole electoral process, not just discrete elements such as registration, voting systems and electoral expenditure issues. Most democratic states have an independent electoral commission to oversee these issues and this is a subject to which I would like to return with the joint committee in the near future. I am pleased that there appears to be a growing consensus on this across the House.

The amendment in respect of which the Bill is being recommitted today will ensure that maximum use will be made of the time remaining, before the current register expires, to further improve the draft register. The relevant registration dates affected by the amendment are set out in primary legislation and, in line with recent case law, any change therein requires change in primary legislation. It is not possible to change primary legislation by ministerial order, even in a small matter like adjusting a date.

The current law allows claims for correction to the draft register up to 25 November. Following consideration of these claims, county registrars must return the endorsed list of claims to local authorities by 23 December. A final register must be published by 1 February by the councils. The effect of the amendment will be to allow more time for councils to complete their work and additional time for members of the public to submit claims for corrections to the draft register. I recently discussed the issue of a time extension with the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government. I stated I would consider sympathetically any requests from local authorities for an extension to the time limits. I had not received any such requests at the time but on 21 November I received requests from three of the 34 registration authorities, two of which were notices of motion from elected members of the councils in question, while the other was from the management of the council in question. Rather than confine the extension to the three councils concerned, I decided to provide an extension of time to all councils to complete their work on the register. This is in line with the suggestion made at the joint committee. In these circumstances, I also decided to give an additional fortnight to members of the public for submitting corrections to their council.

A number of dates in the Electoral Act 1992 must be changed to give effect to the new extended timeframes. First, the deadline for any person wishing to make a claim for a correction to the draft register has been extended from 25 November to 9 December. Second, local authorities must prepare and forward the list of claims to county registrars by 12 December as opposed to 30 November. Third, county registrars must return an endorsed list of claims to local authorities by 12 January.

As a result, local authorities will have until 2 January to carry out their own amendments to the draft register. The final date for the publication of the register for 2007-08 will remain as 1 February and will come into force on 15 February as normal. To do otherwise would create a lacuna in which the only register available would be that compiled in autumn 2005. In law, the current register ceases to have effect on 14 February next. No one is arguing that the life of that register, which was compiled in the autumn of 2005, should be extended. Such a suggestion would be illogical given the results of this year's campaign and the large number of errors on the register. I have proposed the maximum possible extension within the limits of the life of the current register.

The registration process this year has had more resources and more attention than at any time in living memory. More resources and personnel have been dedicated to the task than ever before. The object is to ensure that those who are entitled to vote are registered and no one is disenfranchised by the process. The amendment will provide further assurance in this regard and give councils extra time to ensure they do a comprehensive job. It is my pleasure to move the motion.

Mr. O’Dowd

The electoral system belongs to the people, not to one political party or government. During the course of this Dáil, the only significant intervention made in this regard has been on one side of the argument, namely, on behalf of the Government. Without listening to Members on this side, the Government's hubris was evident in its decision to plough ahead and buy electronic voting machines for more than €50 million. These machines are now kept in cold storage at an annual cost of at least €1 million.

Perfecting the electoral register has occupied minds for some time. The Fianna Fáil Party has been in power for 16 of the past 20 years and if ever the electoral register was in a mess, it is under this Minister. He only needed to examine the position in Northern Ireland where, according to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland:

From 2007. . . the Register published on 1 December 2006 will be continually updated using information obtained from electors. Any person who is eligible can register at any time and many will be contacted by the Electoral Office as a result of information obtained from government bodies (such as DVLNI, NI Housing Executive and Rates Collection Agency) regarding changes of residence. Updates to the Register will be published on the first working day of each month and a revised version of the Register will be published on 1 December each year.

The authorities in Northern Ireland have got the system right. It avoids electoral fraud while allowing for the names of voters, for example, those who have died or new residents, to be added or removed from the electoral register. It is beyond the capacity of the Government to introduce a similar system here.

The Minister should be embarrassed that he requires a special hour-long debate to pass amendments he should have brought before the House in the legislation. He did not listen to members of the public, Opposition Deputies or Fianna Fáil Party Members who requested during the Committee Stage debate that he extend the deadline to allow local authorities to sort out problems they had encountered. During that debate, I referred to County Roscommon where letters to electors did not issue before the draft register was drawn up, with the result that thousands of people are probably still receiving letters indicating that their names have been removed from the register and they will lose their vote if they do not respond quickly.

The register is a mess because the Minister did not listen and refuses to learn. The Government needs to pass control of the electoral register to an electoral commission. The recent political rows and debates on this issue would not have occurred if it had seen fit to give an organisation such as the Referendum Commission responsibility for managing the franchise, voting system and register of electors.

I have tabled amendments on Report Stage of the Bill providing that a person who reaches the age of 18 years and is or shall be, on the qualifying date, a citizen of Ireland and ordinarily resident in the relevant constituency shall be automatically registered as a voter in the constituency referred to. These amendments should be accepted.

On Committee Stage, the Minister provided a long document outlining the reasons personal public service — PPS — numbers could not be used for the purpose of the electoral register. The authorities in Northern Ireland use the equivalent of the PPS to compile their electoral register. The Government has failed to introduce an honest and fair method to allow citizens to have their names placed on the electoral register and cast their vote without problems or doubts arising regarding electoral fraud.

The Taoiseach publicly supports the Minister, arguing that the system is fine when the contrary is the case. The Minister stated it is easy to have one's name added to the supplementary electoral register at election time. Once the new register is issued on 12 February, those seeking to have their names added to it will be required to fill out a form and attend a Garda station where a garda must attest that they are living at the address indicated on the form. The form must then be sent to the county council which must send an official to check the address. These requirements were introduced for good reason, namely, to avoid fraud. They would be fine if the register were correct but the register to be issued in February is not correct. The Sunday Tribune and Sunday Independent newspapers analysed the registration process and noted significant problems. We will not be in a position to determine whether these are errors until the register becomes available.

The comparative figures provided by the Minister indicate that the number of people on the electoral register in County Louth increased by more than 3,000 since the last register was taken, whereas in the adjoining County Meath the number of names on the electoral register fell by more than 20,000 in the same period. Something is seriously amiss in one of these counties. Given that both are important growth areas on the periphery of Dublin which have experienced significant influxes of population, how could the number of names on the register increase by 3,000 in County Louth and decrease by 20,000 in County Meath? Either the register in the former has been stuffed with fraudulent voters or the register in the latter has not been compiled correctly. Officials in County Louth inform me they employed 43 enumerators to check it and they are satisfied it is accurate. The figures published in yesterday's Irish Independent, however, show a significant variation between counties.

Clearly the problem is that there is no central control of the register. Until there is an electoral commission in place with statutory powers to run elections, to handle the register of electors and to examine issues such as electronic voting and the voting machines there will be problems.

The Committee on Electronic Voting has been disbanded so we have to rely on the Minister's good offices to test the machines. We are concerned about this but it is happening because the Minister refused to listen and the Government believes it owns the system. Fianna Fáil has been in government for 18 of the last 20 years but it now believes it owns the whole country, the voting machines, the voting system and the electoral register.

The Government has not listened to us but democracy is a two-way process. The Opposition spoke about electronic voting, pointing out the problems we faced, and we also spoke about the electoral register. I am not saying the Minister does not have good intentions. He set out to tackle the issue but the end result is worse than the initial position. There are deep concerns about this process that will become apparent when people find they are not on the register. If 5,000 people in Fingal find they are not on the register in the run-up to the election and they apply for inclusion on the supplementary register, the council must visit where they live, but there will not be enough time to do that. That is the mess in which we find ourselves.

The Minister cannot extend the deadline for inclusion on the register by two weeks unless we amend the Bill. We do not oppose the amendment but it is too little too late. The Minister said it is not possible to extend the deadline beyond December but he should ask the Attorney General to re-examine this and extend the period until the end of January. Whatever date is chosen, the register would then be final. That would give everyone a chance to ensure they are on it. Unless that is done, and I acknowledge the procedural difficulties, there will be a catastrophe. That is what the media tell us and it is what the figures show.

We must take control of the register from the Minister and give it to an independent body if we are to tackle this problem. If he is returned to office, the Minister could read out a clear guide from an electoral office for Ireland, which will ensure the register is updated monthly and anyone who wishes to be included is included. That will not be possible under this system and there will be an awful lot of confusion in the run-up to the general election.

The election results will be open to legal challenges. If I apply for the supplementary register, how can the council know I will be there when it sends someone out to check? If there are 5,000 addresses to check in some constituencies, it will be a major problem. Those who have properly tried to be included on the supplementary register will not be on it. Seats have been won and lost by a handful of votes and this election will go to the wire.

The Minister has made a mess of this and the Government has acted in an arrogant and unacceptable manner. The problems are now coming home to roost and people are angry. It is time, even at this late stage, to extend the deadline to at least the end of January, the difficulties it may cause for administrators notwithstanding.

The day has gone when local government authorities can look after the register. They do not have the necessary databases or knowledge. Many local authorities have no local charges to allow for the construction of such a database on households. The lists they use are out of date and it is not their job anyway. An independent authority should be established to register people automatically in conjunction with an agency such as An Post, which delivers mail every day. An Post knows where people live and should be allowed to deal with this in future. It is time for local authorities to move away from the issue because in counties with significant population increases, they do not have the time or resources to ensure an accurate register. This is a mess and it is the Minister's fault.

Mr. Gilmore

The motion asks permission from the House to bring in last minute legislation to deal with a mess created by the Government, particularly by this Minister. The amendment we are being asked to allow to be debated tonight is so late that its request to extend the deadline dates for registration must be backdated to 25 November.

The irony is that the amendment the Minister is now asking the House to give permission to introduce is the same as the proposal the Labour Party made less than four weeks ago that the deadline date for registration should be extended. The Minister refused that request three weeks ago and continued to do so until last week when, belatedly, he was forced to introduce this amendment to extend the deadline date by a period of two weeks.

It is not the first time the Minister has acted belatedly on this issue. He spoke about the problems with the electoral register as if it was a problem that was the creation and responsibility of every party in this House, but that is not the case. The problems with the register derive in the main from the way this country has developed in the past ten years, coinciding with the life of the present Government. We are repeatedly told that one third of the country's housing stock has been built in the past ten years, and that is so. That is why we have a problem with the register. Those houses were not visited by local authorities and the register was not updated for those dwellings.

We have seen changes in the past decade in the ways in which people live and work. Someone calling to a house now may not get access. It might be a gated community with an electronic code key-pad to allow entry to apartment blocks. Even if he or she gets past that, residents will be out at work or collecting their children from a crèche. The problems, therefore, in compiling the electoral register have increased in the past ten years.

In addition, the local authorities facing the largest problems in compiling the register in the country's fastest growing areas are the same authorities that are stretched with the taking in charge of housing, provision of roads and sanitary services and planning problems. I know this is the case because I raised the issue with the Minister a year ago when I became aware that a local authority, Kildare County Council, had requested additional resources from the Minister to update the electoral register and he had responded by refusing.

The problem with the electoral register did not happen overnight. It was documented in a series of articles in The Sunday Tribune and it was an issue that I raised in the House on behalf of the Labour Party, which proposed that the census process could have been used to update the register. This was dismissed by an arrogant Government. It claimed it could not be done and that it would interfere with the privacy and confidentiality of the census process. This need not have been the case. All that was required was that the census enumerators would be given an additional form which they would use to update the names of the people who were entitled to be on the electoral register and return that form to the local authority. This suggestion was dismissed.

A Private Members' proposal introduced by the Labour Party in the earlier part of this year included a proposal that PPS numbers might be used. This too was shot down by the Government. When confronted with the incontrovertible evidence that the register was totally out of date, the Minister ended up sending, in many cases, the very same census enumerators who had been out in April to retrace their steps and to redo or attempt to redo what they could have easily done much more efficiently in April. The result, as we now know, is that a new problem has been created. A total of half a million names have been removed from the electoral register, 380,000 have been added and 170,000 that it is believed are people who are normally entitled to vote have been deleted from the register because they were not at home or they did not respond to the letter. These are people who, if they do not get back on to the register, will in many cases turn up at polling stations whenever the general election is called, only to be told that their right to vote has been removed from them.

When the Second Stage of this Bill to extend voting rights to prisoners was taken in the House, I suggested to the Minister that the problems of the electoral register should be dealt with in this Bill. He would not hear of it. I tried again on Committee Stage but the Minister similarly would not hear of it. Here we are now at the eleventh hour with a proposal to extend the date to 9 December and this must be backdated to 25 November as if we had never been talking about the electoral register for the past number of months.

This is coming from a Government whose contribution to the electoral process over the past number of years was the daft, irresponsible and reckless waste of €60 million of taxpayers' money on buying an electronic voting system that we cannot use. These were the people who were so keen to be the great modernisers in Europe of electoral law and processes that they went off harum-scarum to buy an electronic voting system that cannot be used and which the Commission on Electronic Voting has said in no uncertain terms is unreliable and wide open to abuse. The Government could not even keep the electoral register accurate and could not assemble an accurate list of people entitled to vote.

I recall the Taoiseach at the time of the controversy over electronic voting poking fun at the Opposition, saying that we were not keeping up with the times. He said they were using it in India and why could we not vote electronically. What is his contribution to the issue of the state of the electoral register? It is to say that the claims about the electoral register are nonsense. He specifically stated:

There are still some people who did not answer the door when people called and did not answer the letters. If people refuse to check the website and listen to the ads that have been plonked in the media for weeks and do nothing, there is nothing you can do. You cannot force them to go on the register.

In other words, the Government's failure has now become, according to the Taoiseach, the failure of the hard-working people in this country who were not at their door when the person from the local authority called because they were out at work or they were stuck in traffic getting home from work or they were collecting the children from the childminder or were too busy with their daily lives to deal with this issue. The Taoiseach and the Government are out of touch with the reality of the lives of people in this country.

I welcome the proposal to extend the date to 9 December because I have been calling for an extension for some time. However, it is not good enough. One of the reasons it is not good enough is that the information which those of us who are engaged in the political process, those of us in political parties, rely on has not been made available to us. I thank the Minister for accepting the principle of the amendment even though he has his own wording for it. The Labour Party proposal is that the Data Protection Acts will not be used as an obstacle to a list of the deletions being compiled.

The problem is that the Act will be amended to allow for the compilation of a list of deletions but by the time we get it, we will not be able to use it because the date of 9 December will be upon us. For that practical reason, if for no other reason, I ask the Minister that when we come to deal with the detail of the amendment, to extend the date of 9 December as this does not give sufficient time for us to make our contribution to the updating of the register. I regret that we are in this eleventh hour situation. We have another mess which has been created by a Government which has really lost the run of itself.

I listened with some amusement and some sadness to the many speeches that were made at the recent Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis, the general tone of which was that nobody can run or govern the country but Fianna Fáil. Any of us would make a better job of this than they are making. None of us would have ended up in a situation where the electoral register, the basic document on which our democracy is founded and run, is in such a sorry state as it is now. The belated attempts being made to put it right are resulting in new problems which the Government is only belatedly coming to even recognise, much less resolve.

Mr. Morgan

I wish to share time with Deputies Gregory, Catherine Murphy and Cuffe.

I welcome this legislation because as the previous speaker said those of us in opposition have been calling for it for some time. Even though the Minister accepted that request somewhat belatedly, it is still welcome and it will help to achieve a better register of electors for many parts of the State.

The register of electors is an extremely important document. Unless one's name is on the register of electors, one does not have the power to vote and if one does not have the power to vote, one has no say.

I do not wish to simply hang the noose for the catastrophe of the electoral register around the neck of the current Government because it has been around the necks of successive Governments for some considerable time, going back to 1997——

Mr. Gilmore

What does the Deputy mean by "successive" Governments?

Mr. Morgan

——when the Fianna Fáil Government——

Mr. Gilmore

The Deputy should stop cosying up to them. He should stop cosying up to Fianna Fáil as a prelude.

Mr. Morgan

——-did away with the rate collectors. That is when the mess happened and when provision should have been made. Many parties, even on this side of the House, shared in the mess by ignoring the register of electors——

Mr. Gilmore

They have been in Government for the past 20 years.

Mr. Morgan

The Deputy's party shares some of the responsibility for this mess. The slide happened since 1977 when Jack Lynch abolished rates. No correction was made and many Deputies now on the Opposition benches could have made it but chose not to do so. It is spread around the place.

However, this Government must take the lion's share of that burden. It has been in Government for 18 of the past 20 years and it sat on the fence, particularly in recent years. I make some concession to Deputy Gilmore's point. The huge population shifts in recent years resulted in a crying need for attention to the register of electors, but this attention was not given. Responsibility was left with the local authorities but this was responsibility without resources. How could local authorities ever be expected to cope with the huge shifts in population? The job was much easier in olden days when rate collectors visited every house in the State.

Now that this has changed, a central agency with complete responsibility for the register across the State is absolutely essential.

I get mixed messages from local authorities. Some co-operate well with elected representatives in sending out and publishing their lists of deletions but others do not. For example, a letter from South Dublin County Council in response to a request for the list of names of persons removed from the register said, "In this connection I wish to inform you that, based on advice received from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, the council is not in a position to provide you with the requested information as it could give rise to data protection implications". That is nonsense. Why is there such a level of confusion among local authorities? Are they messing around? Is it someone playing God, or something close to it, with the register of electors and telling elected representatives to take a running jump? It is completely unacceptable and demonstrates the need for a central authority to deal with these issues.

There has been a significant increase in the register of electors in my Louth constituency. While there have been more than 8,000 deletions, of which 3,035 were notable, more than 12,000 net additions have been made to the register. I know there has been some innuendo as to why that might happen; I see the same is happening in Donegal. I wish we could get to the bottom of it and sort it out rather than engaging in mud-slinging and innuendo. It needs to be resolved. I note that one polling station in Dundalk has had an increase of more than 37%. However, when I examined the area I found that two substantial new housing schemes had been developed in the area. This offered some explanation of why such an increase would take place.

Some local authorities have visited libraries and other places to encourage people to check the register. However, one could argue that libraries are the wrong venue as people visiting those tend to be literate and therefore up to speed with matters such as checking that their names are on the register. One could argue that local authorities should have visited post offices and shopping centres where their presence would be more widely recognised and would have offered significant help and assistance to voters.

While I welcome the legislation and acknowledge the extended deadline has been helpful, it could have been managed better. In discussion with Deputy Ó Snodaigh earlier, I argued that one of the reasons in the past for lengthy lead-in times for registers of electors was their manual construction. Nowadays registers can be checked by the push of a button. More time could have been afforded to ensure this was done properly. We will support this amending legislation. I hope the Minister will undertake to establish a central agency with responsibility for the register in the not too distant future.

The North was earlier cited as an example. However, the North got it badly wrong and wiped hundreds of thousands of people off the register. Luckily enough, my colleagues lobbied those foreign ministers who visit the place from time to time and they accepted the option and changed the register.

Mr. Gregory

I welcome the deadline extension. I also welcome that, for the first time, an attempt is being made to achieve a reliable electoral register. I have highlighted this issue for as long as I have been a Member of this House, and that is quite a long time. During the debate on introducing electronic voting, I said we would be better off spending our time and energy streamlining the electoral register than in trying to change the voting system. This was dismissed with the casual arrogance that seems to go with some people in ministerial office.

The Minister will know that I have raised the complete lack of a verification process regarding the creation of a reliable register. This is quite remarkable in an age of such sophisticated technology. To be certain, I contacted those in Dublin City Council charged with compiling the register. They confirmed what we all know: they accept at face value all names and addresses submitted to them by persons who complete the relevant form. There is no process for cross-checking or verification. This might not be as serious as it sounds, other than we know that Members have been elected to the House by one vote, or just a handful of votes. Governments have been elected on that basis, yet we have no verification process. I also discovered that one cannot be added to Dublin City Council's parking permit list without producing four or five individual identification documents, including a utility bill as proof of address.

I would like to continue at length but I am sharing time with Deputy Murphy. I raised this with the Minister at a time when he could have done something about it, but he dismissed me out of hand with the same arrogance that Deputies Noel Dempsey and Cullen dismissed the argument during the debates on the introduction of electronic voting. It is a great shame that something so essential to a fair and democratic process is being ignored.

Ms C. Murphy

An accurate electoral register is the cornerstone of any democracy. I doubt that the huge problems that exist with the current review will be dealt with in the next fortnight. The failure to provide information on the deletions is a case in point. The default position taken by some local authorities, including my own, is that if one is not listed one cannot vote.

While the population of Kildare has increased by 20,000 in the past four years, the register is now smaller by thousands. It is not a question of these changes being accounted for by people who died or by duplicate entries. When one examines the register one will find that not every home in a housing estate has an entry. For example, one will see entries for houses number one, number 13, number 25 etc., and the gaps in between clearly show that people are being excluded. It is easy to see how this would occur in a constituency like mine where people are so time poor due to travelling to work times etc. One in five people have been chopped off the register in Naas, Clane and Maynooth, while it is one in four in Celbridge. Very little fieldwork was done in Leixlip for a particular reason.

The online version is simply the draft register. No one can check the online version for changes between now and February. There is the possibility of doing something meaningful with this so that people can check if they have been added to the register. The supplementary register requirements could be changed so that while identification is required, people are not required to go to Garda stations to be added to it.

Everyone is entitled to be added to the register, but fieldworkers have told me that the variation in entitlements has not been properly scrutinised. People who are only entitled to vote in local or European elections will now be allowed to vote in the general election. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in its own right.

I do not believe local authorities are the correct agencies to carry out this fieldwork any longer. They do not have the relationship on the doorstep they used to have when the domestic rates regime was in place. Using an agency like An Post, which has a direct daily relationship with householders, is a better way to deal with this. We must learn some lessons from this. Money spent on this exercise will be wasted if there is not an ongoing corrective process.

Mr. Boyle

There is no argument but that this is a bit of a mess. One of the cornerstones of democratic behaviour has been called into question as we approach what will be a very important general election. It behoves us all to ensure this mess is sorted out as soon as possible. It also raises questions as to how many elections have been held on a near fraudulent basis. As was mentioned, elections have thrown up unusual results. Not only could future elections be challenged because of the way this is being handled but previous elections could be called into question given the system we have used to compile the electoral register.

We need to move beyond a stop-gap, band-aid measure such as that which the Minister has been forced to introduce here. We need to put in place fail-safe mechanisms and technology exists that may allow us to do that. We need to put in place procedures on how we identify residents and citizens. A proposal made by my party and supported by others is the use of personal public service, PPS, numbers that would allow people to be registered and would allow for their movement around, in and out of the country.

There are other structural faults the Minister has, to date, been unwilling to tackle. Each local authority is given responsibility for compiling the register but each has a different standard and approach. In my constituency and in many others, the register is compiled by two local authorities. In some constituencies, it may be the case that more than two local authorities are involved. The lack of consistency in approach raises further questions.

Deputy Catherine Murphy raised further doubts about the existing electoral register not only in regard to names inadvertently taken off it and names that remain on it when they should not be there, but in regard to the different categories of people named on it for local, European Parliament, Dáil and presidential elections and for referenda. Doubts exist because people are being wrongly categorised. We are sowing the seeds for further questions. We must address the fundamental problem before us. We must put in place technology that can properly identify citizens.

I do not agree with the approach of the Labour Party in regard to the census. I accept some of the argument the Minister made in that regard. I see a role for the Central Statistics Office outside its census activity. The ability to address this problem lies within the public service. However, I question whether there is the political will and the means to put in place the resources to tackle this problem. Many of us who have been involved in electoral politics for some time will have seen the abuse of electoral registers — for example, people registered as living in houses which were not occupied and family members being registered while no longer living in particular houses. In addition, there are questions about the value of the document each of us seeking election to this House and to elected bodies must use.

On these grounds, the Minister is being forced to introduce a measure many of us believe does not even scratch the surface of what must be done. He should be willing to take a more collective approach to ensure this problem is dealt with systematically.

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. Roche)

I thank Deputies and would like to take up a number of the points made. Turning to Deputy Boyle's contribution, I have said several times that this must be taken out of the political maw and that we need an electoral commission that will take over the totality of this. I agree with the comment that this should not be an issue for one side of the House. I would welcome a debate in that regard.

Incidentally, I also commented in precisely the same way as Deputy Boyle on the probable impact of all this on previous elections. We must remember that in 2002 the electoral register on which we were all elected had one third of a million more people named on it than should have been named. As was said in some of the argument and analysis subsequently, the electoral register here has been out of kilter by as many as 860,000 people. My calculation at the early part of this, which is a matter of record, was that there would be of the order of 300,000 to 400,000 errors on the register. The names of more than one quarter of a million people were not on the register whose names should have been on it. As it happens, there were half a million people in respect of whom there were deletions and corrections. At least 300,000 plus of those should not have been on the register, including tens of thousands of names of people who had passed away and whose names were not removed from the register. In the city of Waterford, the names of 1,400 people who were deceased were still on the register. I regard that as a scandal and that is why far from being either obstructive or difficult, I am the first Minister ever to take this matter on. No Minister has ever taken it on because it has been regarded as a hot potato. Everybody knows that once one gets into the job of correcting the voter register, one must get into the area of deletions which make politicians unpopular.

Deputies Catherine Murphy and Morgan referred to field work. It has been a challenge for local authorities and it has been difficult for them because of the sheer volume of change. A most cogent argument in this regard was made by Deputy Gregory. Far from being blind or deaf to the point he made, I agree with him and I will return to that point. On this occasion and for the first time ever, central government funds have been made available to the local authorities specifically to do the job on the register. I am delighted with the consensus emerging in this House that we need to look at the role of local authorities. The position in law — I am not shirking responsibility in this matter — is that local authorities are responsible for this job. They have argued with some validity that the job is massive and they have had a problem with resources.

Deputy Boyle made a very valid point about the inconsistency between local authorities. I am not sure if the Deputy is aware of this and I am not faulting him but before this process was undertaken, I sat down with the county managers' group to identify the problem with the inconsistency between one local authority and another. Deputy Boyle is quite right in that the distances between local authorities is stunning. That is why this year, before this process started, and before I got funding for the local authorities, I also changed the guidelines. For the first time ever, remarkably, we had a consistent set of guidelines.

I will take up the positive points, although there will inevitably be a little point scoring and who could blame us. I would do the same if I was on the far side the House. Deputies O'Dowd, Morgan, Catherine Murphy, Gregory and Boyle touched on the issue of some central format. We will have to commit to moving to an independent electoral commission and I have said that several times. The electoral commission will have to handle all aspects of this, including the boundaries, the construction of the register, the basis on which the register is constructed, the voting system, the form of voting used and, to go back to Deputy Gregory's point, the form of voter verification. I have more difficulty registering for residential parking in my local authority than I have getting on the register.

Mr. Gregory

The Minister is responsible.

Mr. Roche

It is very difficult to change any process half way through it.

Let us look at where there is agreement. What we are doing here is moving the dates out. I wish to make one point to Deputy O'Dowd on the issue of PPS numbers. We have talked about the issue of using PPS numbers several times. With respect, I think Deputy Morgan has a more accurate view of what happened in the North of Ireland than Deputy O'Dowd.

Mr. O’Dowd

I am reading from the legislation. It is quoted in the legislation.

Mr. Roche

I know what the Deputy has quoted.

Mr. O’Dowd

I have it here.

Mr. Roche

I have read it, thank you. I make the point that Deputy Morgan's take on what happened in the North of Ireland is infinitely more accurate than that of Deputy O'Dowd. Tens of millions were spent on trying to compile the voting register up there——

Mr. O’Dowd

I was quoting from the regulations on the register.

Mr. Roche

I know that. I can read. Will Deputy O'Dowd bear with me and allow me make a point?

Mr. O’Dowd

Will the Minister accept a point of information?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should allow the Minister speak as he is in possession.

Mr. Roche

I agree the Deputy is an accurate reader.

Mr. O’Dowd

The identifier allowed is a national insurance number, which is what the PPS is. The Minister should not try and confuse the issue.

Mr. Roche

The point I am making is that Deputy Morgan's take on what happened in the North of Ireland is infinitely more accurate than that of Deputy O'Dowd.

Mr. O’Dowd

I am talking about the new Act.

Mr. Roche

I know what the Deputy is talking about. I simply make the point that before——

Mr. O’Dowd

I do not need a lecture from the Minister as to what they did not do.

Mr. Roche

I listened with patience and courtesy to Deputy O'Dowd, including to his inaccuracies, and I ask him to return the courtesy and let me finish the point.

Mr. O’Dowd

There is nothing inaccurate in what I said.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Allow the Minister without interruption.

Mr. O’Dowd

They used the equivalent of the PPS number.

Mr. Roche

The point being made, which the Deputy wishes to ignore, is there was a massive and costly effort made in the North of Ireland before they moved to the rolling register.

Mr. O’Dowd

That is what I am talking about.

Mr. Roche

I have been an advocate of a rolling register here. Regarding whether we could use PPS numbers, if there was a simple way of converting the 5 million plus PPS numbers, which are not sensitive to addresses, to a voting register, it would be done. However, there is no simple way of doing that without a massive change in the way we do our business. Returning to Deputy Gregory's point, PPS numbers would certainly be useful as a means of verification, but they are not the simple solution to creating the register. Allow me give a figure that illustrates this. In the period since 1 May 2004, some 295,171 people from the ten new EU member states have joined the workforce and got PPS numbers. PPS numbers are not sensitive to their address as they move around. Some lived for a while in County Kildare, but now they are in Wicklow and we all know this happens. It is not a question of being obdurate or difficult, but of dealing with reality and choosing the best way to do the job on this occasion.

I agree with Deputy Boyle and I am amazed there has not been a challenge previously on the basis of the inaccuracies of the register. Excellent work was done in The Sunday Tribune by Messrs O’Flynn and Coleman and if their figure of 800,000 inaccuracies was correct, it was a scandal. Even if the figure was my lower estimate of 400,000 plus, it was still a scandal. That is intolerable and that is the reason we are making the effort to amend the register through this Bill. I am grateful for the support of the House in extending the dates.

Deputies Gilmore and Catherine Murphy raised the issue of data protection. I regret the decision made on data protection and do not understand the logic of it. I do not understand how Deputies Crowe and Rabbitte were refused access to the register. They did not want the information for anything other than to assist democracy and they should have been facilitated. I am pleased to accept the amendment on that issue and have strengthened it.

Given we must issue the register by 15 February, it is not practical to postpone its issue until March or later. On 14 February, the existing register goes out of date and it would be wrong to allow a lacuna to build where we would have a day where we would not have a register other than the 2005 register. I will make it clear to local authorities that Deputies will have the right, up to the time of the electoral court and the time the county registers sign off on the register, and the opportunity to put forward their lists.

I have noticed, although it was not mentioned in the debate, there has been a disproportionate amount of deletions in some local authority housing estates. This is reprehensible because the specific guidelines sent to local authorities advised they should not lightly strike off electors living in council estates, particularly as they will accept rental from these same people the following week. I noted this myself and have sent out a circular advising local authorities to pay more attention to this matter.

To return to the point made by Deputy Catherine Murphy, when Members get the opportunity to see the registers, they will see superb field work was done in many areas and much trouble was taken. However, in some areas the field work may not have been so good. Where there is a disproportionate amount of deletions in a specific area, I have asked local authorities to pay particular attention.

Question put and agreed to.