I move amendment No. 2:
In page 6, after line 44, to insert the following:
"Amendment of Electoral Act 1992, Referendum Act 1994 and Presidential Elections Act 1993 in order to change island voting and to provide for related matters
4. (1) Section 85 of Part 15 of the Electoral Act 1992 is hereby repealed.
(2) Section 42 of the Presidential Elections Act 1993 is hereby amended by the substitution of "section 86" for "sections 85 and 86".
(3) Section 30 of the Referendum Act 1994 is hereby amended by the substitution of "section 86" for "sections 85 and 86".
(4) (a) The Minister may make regulations for the general purpose of this section and may, by regulation, provide for any matter referred to in this Act as prescribed or to be prescribed.
(b) Every regulation under this section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling the
regulation is passed by either such House within the next 21 days on which that House has sat after the regulation is laid before it, the regulation shall be annulled
accordingly but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under the regulation.
(c) Regulations under this section may contain such incidental, supplementary and consequential provisions as appear to the Minister to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of the regulations.".
The effect of this amendment would be to delete the section that provides for voting to be arranged by the returning officers. It is at their discretion and a day earlier than the ballot in the rest of the country. In Donegal in recent times, the ballot has been held two days earlier and one day earlier in Galway and Mayo. Amazingly, it has been held on the same day as the rest of the country for a long time on the Cork islands. The disadvantage of holding it a day earlier, particularly on islands, is that we normally hold elections on Friday. Holding elections on Fridays is quite sensible. The idea is that by holding an election on a Friday, people are given the maximum opportunity to get home to vote because there are many who work or study away from home who do not bother to get a postal vote and who want to cast their ballot at their local polling stations. They return home at the weekend and vote. The advantage for rural people who may be studying in Dublin and who are returning home of elections being held on Fridays is doubled in an island context. This is because more individuals from the islands tend to work on the mainland. It is not so easy to travel the 30 or 40 miles back home in the evening to vote - the person might only be working in Galway, so the distance involved would not be great - and return to the mainland the following morning. There are 2,575 people registered to vote on the islands. As of the most recent election, 1,155 people were registered to vote in Galway West, 760 people were registered to vote in Donegal, 194 people were registered to vote in Mayo and 466 people were registered to vote in Cork South West. In other words, that is the position outlined by the electoral register at the most recent election and it would not have changed that dramatically since then.
The argument has been put forward that there would be a problem in getting ballot boxes to polling booths. The first thing is that there is a discretion under the Act if one wishes to have a short polling day. That is the situation on Inishfree and Gola. They have three or four hours of polling as a result of the very small number of people who vote. A total of 67 people are registered to vote on Inishbofin, nine are registered to vote on Inishfree and 25 people are registered to vote on Gola. My understanding is that there have been short polling days on these islands and that there is no problem getting the boxes back as a result.
I approached the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for data relating to the regularity of boat sailings. It is very instructive to discover how things on the islands have improved dramatically. Arranmore in Donegal has an average of seven return sailings per day and 2,464 return sailings per year. The total number of non-sailings is 78. These are return sailings that do not occur for one reason or another. When I take out December and January, I suddenly find that the figure drops to 16. In order to have an election in January, one would need to call it literally in the first week of that month. If it was called at the end of January, the election would be in February. It is unlikely that this Government or any other would call an election in the run-up to Christmas. Therefore, when one looks at non-sailings, one can exclude the possibility of the two months of January and December. One could probably exclude the early weeks of February as well. What one will find is that the few non-sailings that happen take place in those days. Since there are seven sailings per day, and this is the information I was a bit disappointed not to get even though I specifically asked for it, I reckon that in the 16 days during which there was a missed sailing - unless there were two days during which the entire seven did not occur - there were probably six sailings during those days so the boats actually sailed on all the days. It just did not do all the sailings. It might have missed an early or late sailing. I think one could say there is never a day during which the boat does not get in from Arranmore.
When we consider the position in respect of Tory Island, which is probably the least accessible island, we find that there are 991 return sailings. That is approximately three sailings per day. The figure for non-sailings is 228, which is higher than any other island. Again, when one excludes December and January, one finds that this drops to 130. There is one difference in Donegal, which is that there is also an arrangement to have a helicopter service to the island so it would be very easy to make an arrangement for one extra helicopter trip to that island because there is a contract between the HSE and the Department to provide for helicopter services. In the case of Tory Island - as already stated, this is probably one of the more difficult islands to reach - when one actually strips it down, allowing for three sailings per day, there will be very few days during which there is no sailing. When one then takes the helicopter service into account, the problem is eliminated.
In the context of Inishbiggle, we find that in the period 2013 to 2014, out of 670 sailings, there were two sailings missing and there were none missing in the period 2014 to 2015. Again, one sees double sailings per day so it is not a challenge.
I am sorry to go on at length but it is important that we put this on the record. There are 626 sailings to Inishturk a year. Again, there is a double sailing every day. Of those, 89 sailings did not take place. Two sailings did not necessarily take place on the one day; it might have been one sailing. A total of 38 of the 89 non-sailings were in December and January, giving 53 non-sailings in the rest of the year. In most cases, the boat would have sailed at least once in the day, either in the morning or in the evening.
There were 792 sailings to Clare Island. A total of 58 return sailings did not happen but when I take out December and January, the number is down to 26. If I took out the non-sailings for the first half of February, the figures would be a lot less.
I will deal first with the air service for the Aran Islands. In 2013, the air service did not fly on only nine days. The results I got were broken down day by day so I could extrapolate the information accurately. If I take December and January out, there were only four days on which the air service did not fly. They were probably foggy days. The year of the big storms was 2014. In that year, the air service did not fly on 19 days but 11 of those were again in December and January, which brought the number of days on which there was no air service to eight days. This year, to date, there have been 12 days with no service and four of those days were in December and January. On the days it is foggy between the mainland and the Aran Islands, which is one of the main reasons the planes cannot fly, that is the best day for the boat because the sea is as calm as glass.
The same pattern arises when we look at sailings to the Aran Islands. There was a total of 744 sailings to Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr and 42 return sailings did not take place, but 28 of those were in December and January and 14 were in the rest of the year. Unfortunately, there is not a contracted service to Inis Mór so I do not have figures, but I assure the Minister of State that the number of non-sailing days to Inis Mór are much less, if any, because there is a fantastic pier built there and it can take any weather, including a one in a 1,000 year storm.
The situation gets interesting when I look at the Cork islands. The inshore islands in Cork have thousands of sailings with virtually a 100% record. The number of non-sailings are very small. For example, in Inis Arcain, Sherkin Island, there are 5, 616 sailings and there are 3,264 to Whiddy. When I take the one island in Cork that is a little bit offshore, namely, Cape Clear or Oileán Chléire, there are 900 sailings a year or three sailings a day, and again I get the same pattern. A total of 31 non-sailings were recorded. It is unlikely that no sailing took place on any given day. It is more likely that one out of the three sailings was missed. The same pattern emerges in that 14 of those days were in December and January, leaving 17 non-sailings out of a total of 988 sailings. If one takes it that there were no sailings on Sundays, that means it is only a third of that, namely, six days in the year, or much more likely that one of the three sailings did not take place, either an early sailing or a late sailing.
The other interesting point is that in Cork the election has been held on the same day as in the rest of the country even though its rate of non-sailings is more or less comparable with the other islands. I put it to the Minister of State that if it has worked for Cork, it will work for anywhere else. In the event that an election is called on a day on which we have the greatest storm ever, as we had with Storm Debbie, it would not only be a problem on the islands, it would be a problem on the mainland, and an extremely serious problem too if we had a storm such as Hurricane Debbie in the 1960s or a major storm. That would disrupt the voting much more than a bit of delay in getting back a ballot box. If, by some rare chance, on the day of the election one could not get to the islands that are further out by boat, one could use a helicopter service. There is no problem with them flying in the stormiest of weather because the Coast Guard helicopters can fly in virtually any weather. Therefore, the situation that existed in the past before we put in all the piers and services is overruled by the statistics we now have that show the reliability of the transport services to the islands is tremendous.
I am curious to know what would be the statistical chance of having a very bad frost or snow storm in Wicklow, for example, that might prevent a ballot box being returned or might even prevent people from voting. What would be done in that case? We do not have a provision in the legislation to provide for any contingency. There is no problem in getting the ballot boxes back in due course, so the worst case scenario is that one cannot get the boxes out. If that happens, then one would not hold the final count until all the ballot boxes have been distributed. One could ask what is the big deal. In Galway West, it always takes two days and at the last election it took five days to count the votes. One could ask if we are putting the expediency of the count ahead of the basic, fundamental right to vote. We must ask ourselves that serious question.
Why should islanders be treated differently when there is such a small statistical chance of a problem arising? Therefore, I urge the Minister of State to accept the amendment and to ensure same-day voting on the islands as we have on the mainland. It is important to recognise that we live in a vastly changed world with highly reliable services to the islands and that we have the backup of helicopters if we need them if there is an extreme weather event.
