Mr. Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne:

Yes. As regards the question on households, due to time constraints on my opening remarks, I cited problems but no solutions. There are a few solutions. First, the ideal one is the most obvious, which is automatic registration. I have never heard a good reason why a person should not automatically be added to an electoral register when they turn 16 or 18. I was told at the start of the year that voting is important, which implied that one has to jump through a few hoops to merit a vote. Paying taxes is important as well, however, and I did not have to sign up to do that. I have never heard a reason why automatic registration would not work.

Second, if for some reason that is not viable, online voter registration would make a lot of sense. It would remove the problem of deceased people, or those who are no longer resident at an address, being registered. As I said before, I registered to vote in the UK through online registration, which took about five minutes.

The third absolute baseline solution would be to have an individual-centric system, rather than being based on where one lives or who one lives with. An online, centralised register makes so much sense that I cannot believe it does not already exist. If everyone at every polling station had access to the same online database it would prevent double voting.

Surprisingly, it also alludes to the question about spending. People will not jump at anything that requires money but so many changes could be made to improve the efficiency of the process and remove or reduce the number of man-hours required. For example, this year a number of local councils have not accepted forms in bulk, although some do. That means there must be one form in one envelope.

Dublin City Council does not accept forms in bulk, which means I had to enlist ten student union colleagues to spend a full day packing 1,500 envelopes and send them off in the post. Presumably, Dublin City Council staff had to spend a full day opening them. Replacing that rigid and laborious system would reduce the need for the financial resources required at the moment.

There are certainly many solutions to the household problem.