Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

First of all I want to thank the witnesses because they have done a very important piece of work. In advance of the meeting we saw the Irish national election study they were involved with. In their submission the witnesses raised a number of issues. The submission said that "Ireland has high levels of electoral integrity but equally these studies have highlighted areas of serious concern including the electoral registration process, political finance and access to the electoral process for women and minorities." I do not particularly want to go into the topic of political finance because we would need a whole week for that. More importantly the submission expresses concern around access to the electoral process for women and minorities. That is profound. We keep hearing this theme about equal access for women and particular segments of the electorate to the opportunity for engaging with the political process. Perhaps the witnesses could elaborate on this. I would like to hear more about this with regard to minorities. What do the witnesses mean by that? Perhaps they could tease this out and give us some examples to demonstrate their concern.