Ms Ríona Ní Fhlanghaile:

I thank the joint committee for the invitation to attend this morning. I am accompanied by my colleagues, Ms Mairéad Ryan and Ms Mary Lane. We welcome the opportunity to engage on the Bill which proposes to repeal the option of early polling on our offshore islands. This will mean that voting on these islands will take place on the same day as voting on the mainland in referendums and at Dáil and presidential elections. This morning's discussions provide a timely opportunity to examine the Bill in more detail and to discuss some of the practical issues arising from taking a poll on the islands on the same day as on the mainland. Some of these issues were raised when the committee started its scrutiny of the Bill a few weeks ago.

By way of background, I note that polling takes place on seven islands in Cork, five in Galway, three in Mayo and five in Donegal. At the February 2016 general election, there were 2,583 registered voters on these islands. The decision on when to take the poll on an island is a matter for the local returning officer in accordance with section 85 of the Electoral Act 1992. This is the provision proposed to be repealed by the Bill. The law provides that the returning officer may arrange for early polling on an island up to five days in advance of the appointed polling day if he or she considers that taking the poll is going to be affected by weather or transportation difficulties. Practice has varied from election to election and from constituency to constituency. This can be expected given that elections take place at different times of the year and having regard to the different geographic positions of the islands. Weather and sea conditions can vary considerably on any day and at any time of the year. Anyone listening to the weather or sea area forecasts will be familiar with the differences.

At the 2016 general election, polling took place on the Donegal, Mayo and Galway islands on the day before polling day on the mainland. Polling on the Cork islands took place on the same day as the mainland. This was also the pattern for the 2015 referendums and the 2014 local and European elections. Before that, the pattern varied somewhat. The Bill does not propose the repeal of the early voting option for European Parliament elections or local elections. It would seem to make sense to have the same arrangement in place for all elections. We will, therefore, be giving consideration to bringing forward amendments to address this on Committee Stage and would be interested to hear the views of the committee in that regard. Indeed, the need for Committee Stage amendments was signalled by the Minister on Second Stage last December.

Amendments might also be needed to the provisions for the preliminary proceedings at a count. It has always been a concern to start the count on time and to have ballot boxes at the count centre on time. If all ballot boxes are not at a count centre by 9 a.m., the proceedings cannot get under way. The members will be more familiar than I am with the preliminary proceedings and whether boxes are opened and the ballot paper counts are verified. I cannot overemphasise the importance of that phase of the count. If one starts to lose bundles and does not give good time to that process, one is lost once the ballot papers are mixed. It is a critical part of the count. As such, there can be no count results in a constituency unless the ballot boxes from the islands are included. In the case of a presidential election or referendum, any delay with count results at constituency level will, in turn, generate a delay in a result at national level. That is in the event of the ballot boxes not being at the count centre.

With the above in mind, we note that the Bill does not propose to amend section 86 of the Electoral Act 1992, which provides for a shorter polling day in the event of weather or transport difficulties. This degree of flexibility would therefore be retained, which is important and helpful. In fact, this has been the arrangement on the Cork islands to date. Where there has been same day polling, it has been a shorter polling day to avoid delay or disruption in the count at the count centre for the constituency. We will not talk about Storm Ophelia and recent weather events which disrupted the whole country, but even if one has a shorter polling day on the islands, there remains a possibility that ballot boxes will not be at the count centre. We are, therefore, looking at amending the legislation to allow for the preliminary proceedings to be carried out for all other ballot boxes up to a certain point and until the arrival of any delayed ballot boxes. That would give the staff at the count centre something to do and it might shorten any delay. We have been talking to returning officers to see how that would work operationally but we have yet to talk to our Ministers about the detail of it.

Finally, we are curious about section 5 of the Bill and the regulation making power for the Minister for which it provides. I am not sure that it is necessary or what regulations are anticipated as the legislation is an amending Bill. As I read it, there is nothing in it as to what regulations might be made. That is an observation on the Bill. We are glad to take questions or to hear any responses.