Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise, as I had to leave earlier to go to the Seanad. We have discussed this matter for a few days. We have a lot of experts before us today who have been dealing with the organisation of elections for years. Dr. Kavanagh and Mr. Donnelly have done pro ratawork for this State. When the State needs to be told what it should do regarding central registration and data collection, electronic organisation and anything that needs to be known, where does it go? It does not go to a State organ or body. It goes to either Mr. Donnelly or Dr. Kavanagh for central analysis. I am not saying they should be done out of a job, but this job should be incorporated into the electoral commission, because there is a body of knowledge there, going back to 1991 in the case of Mr. Donnelly and his first book. You do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. I am all for setting up an electoral commission, but we need to take note of what is there.

There is a body of knowledge in local authorities. When rates were being collected and rate collectors visited every house, it was easy for them to know what was happening. Local councillors have a body of knowledge. They know who lives in the houses. We should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in this respect either. We need local expertise and knowledge. We need central registration and collection of data to enable everybody throughout the country to have a central means of access. In Mr. Donnelly's submission, I saw that when he went looking for information he had to go to every local authority, and they all had different answers. Eventually, he had to put it in writing and give reasons why he wanted it.Local authorities have the information but each one has it in its own database. Centralising the information for people who want to carry out central data processing is very important. The electoral commission could make use of that. In setting up anything, one needs to look at the expertise in local authorities.

There is considerable criticism of the electoral register. Every Senator and Deputy here has spoken about people who are on and off the register. I know Senator Brennan spoke about somebody who voted nine times. All of this can and will be corrected at a central level. If a person moves out of one local authority area, he or she is not required to de-register. A central database would correct that, because the computers would be talking to each other.

I am sorry for concentrating on Mr. Donnelly. I do so because he has so much expertise. One point that was made in his submission was that it was not electronic voting that was wrong but the actual process of counting. There was nothing wrong with the system of voting. Mr. Donnelly made the point that if it had been done centrally it would not have happened, because they were all doing their own thing at a particular time. Manual voting is not perfect either. It is not the case that everything manual is correct and everything electronic is wrong. IT is brilliant for this type of thing. Again, Mr. Donnelly said that he had never seen a recount come up with the same count twice. If we keep this in mind, we will not be frightened away from doing things electronically. We should not be afraid just because it failed us once. It was made into a political football in the past.

I was here for the presentation by the Data Protection Commissioner on PPS numbers. I can see why people would be afraid of using PPS numbers. Any European country with electronic voting has a central identifier. We do not have that in Ireland. It is only in the past couple of years that all Departments have begun talking to each other on computers.

I cannot remember who made it, but one of the recommendations was that the registration of electors should be contracted out to the Central Statistics Office. Why would a body be set up if its function is to be contracted out? That is passing it on. The knowledge and expertise in local councils should be used. That information should be collated. It was not possible to do that in the past, but it is possible now with computers, and it would not involve transferring information every four hours onto floppy discs; that is done automatically. It is not that the function should be removed from the local authorities and given to another body. We can ensure that everyone works together to do it properly. There are problems with the process. At the last meeting, criticism was expressed of the fact that councils no longer check the number of people living in a house. I live in Dublin, and last week I had a visit from someone in South Dublin County Council checking on the number of people who live in my house. They were doing a check. Councils do those checks, but we have had too many experiences of people being crossed off the register if they did not return the form or whatever. I have heard many Senators and TDs mention that.

I am sorry I was not here for the entire presentation. I thank the people who have done what we should have been doing nationally for years. I am sorry I missed their contribution, but it is available online, as well as that of Mr. Liam Kenny.