Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is a fair point. The reality is that it has been totally down to the discretion of the returning officer in each constituency. Cork has opted for years to have voting on the same day as polling day but Galway, Mayo and Donegal have opted to have voting one day prior to polling day and up to very recently in the case of Mayo and Donegal two days prior to polling day. They have not been availing of their right to vote on the same day as polling day. Therefore, that has not been happening. An argument was put to me with respect to when Mary McAleese was elected in the presidential election when the ballot boxes from the Aran Islands were held up. I have always thought that was a case of bad organisation rather than a transport difficulty. The returning officer had booked a plane from Aran, which is a ten minute journey to the mainland, and then the boxes would have been transported by a vehicle. One condition that prevents a plane flying on a very calm day is fog. That was an extremely calm day but there was fog and instead of asking for the ballot boxes to be transported by boat - the sea was like glass that day and the boat was sailing - they sat there all day wondering if the fog would lift. That was bad planning, to be blunt about it.

Most people would say it was farcical that boxes could not be taken off an island on one of the calmest days.