Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

In respect of this Bill there is an issue I would have preferred the Minister to discuss when he was talking about boundary changes in both the European and the Dáil elections. I cannot understand why there is such resistance to appointing people to deal with the registers. There is no doubt that local authorities have failed. We saw this happen before the last election and, in all fairness to the Minister, he had to put funding in place to allow local authorities put people on the register. What is nobody's business is everybody's business. The time has come for the Minister to give that responsibility to somebody. At present the updating of the register is not even given out as a summer job scheme for students. They might earn some euro going out and knocking on doors, at apartments and flats, trying to get people onto the register. Nothing is more annoying at election time than to have people who genuinely want to vote being prevented from doing so.

What has happened in my own consitutuency is that certain people who were on the register have been knocked off it, for one reason or another, when it was reprinted. There is also the situation of people who have been dead for years but whose cards come through the door during every election period causing upset to their families. Their loved ones may have been dead for up to seven years without the matter having been sorted out.

I say to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and to the Government that there are enough people in Departments now who might be able to think up a scheme or do something about this electoral issue. It should be taken away from local authorities, which are not prepared to deal with it, and should be given to somebody although not to an agency. We have enough quangos in this country. The undertaking could be given to schools during the summer. A certain number of people in each county might be employed in a summer job scheme. They would earn a few euro to get into college and they would be given some responsibility. In that way, the register would be updated every year. It is a simple suggestion and would not cost a fortune.

Local authorities take people on for the summer. In this case why not have, for instance, 40 people employed in each local authority? Their job would be to update the register of electors and they would be paid for the summer months. I see nothing wrong with the suggestion and it should be taken on board by the Minister and the Government. That would stop the situation whereby, in every election I have fought, from town council to county council to the Dáil, there has always been criticism of the register. I cannot understand why we, as practising politicians, do not put such a scheme in place. The suggestion I have offered the Minister is not a big idea and it is one that the Government might consider.

I shall finish on this note. I am in a five-seat constituency which at one time was two three-seaters. I have spoken about this before and now I put it on the record once again. It is unfair when boundaries are extended beyond natural areas, counties and actual borders. Mayo is one of the largest counties in the country and it is impossible to travel from one part of the constituency to the other. I say the following against myself, as I have done previously. I see nothing wrong with having even a three-seater and a two-seater but to have a five-seater in such a large county is ridiculous. It is not good for the health of Deputies to travel all over the county. I leave my home on a Saturday and go to north Mayo and am 70 miles away, doing clinics. If I have to go to Ballina the situation is the same. At a public meeting the other night I was 35 miles from my home.

It is all very well for the media to say that such work is not part of my job. I say to the Dublin 4 brigade that it may not be the job but if a Deputy does not keep in touch with the people and does not go to public meetings the people will soon put him or her out of this House. It is a pity that the Dublin 4 media can help to put a Deputy out but they cannot help put one in. If a Deputy does not keep in contact with the people, those same people will soon lose contact with him or her.

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