Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being in attendance earlier when I was in the Seanad. I have a question on this paper. Reference was made to research that was conducted among young people in which participants were asked how important certain issues are for them. They obviously said that careers and education is their top priority. When they were asked about voting and having an active involvement in politics, they gave mainly neutral or negative responses. As I am only reading this now, I do not know whether any follow-up was done to ascertain why that might be the case. I can guess why because I have read extensively on this issue, including in the report under discussion. It is obvious that young people are turned off by politics.

I was a member of South Dublin County Council when the very first Comhairle na nÓg and Dáil na nÓg were set up. I think the names might have come from a proposal I made at South Dublin County Council. Dáil na nÓg was first and it was followed by Comhairle na nÓg. South Dublin County Council was very active in this area. It developed a toolkit to get the youth of the area involved. There is no point in putting people's names on the register if they do not actually vote. That is where adults should be ashamed of themselves. Young people could teach adults in this regard. According to the last survey I looked at, when young people register to vote, 53% of them turn out and do so.

I would like to speak about the issue of automatic registration. I am aware that Hillary Clinton made a proposal in this regard last month. One state in America - Oregon - already automatically registers people to vote when they reach the age of 18, if the people in question have driving licences. I do not know why the driving licence requirement was included. Lots of people cannot drive, but they should be eligible to vote. That is the way they did it.

As we know from the debate about RSI numbers, identification is an issue in this country. Until we have a system that actually talks to the computers and links to everybody, like the "who are you" facility that is used in New Zealand, we will not be able to identify people. The last time this matter was discussed at this forum, a Senator spoke about a person being registered to vote and voting 12 times in an election. We need to safeguard against that.