Ms Petra Woods:

I thank the Minister of State and I thank the Deputy for the questions. The first question was about postal votes for people who are out of the country. As stated previously, the work did not involve a consideration of expanding postal voting to other groups. There is provision in the programme for Government for the commission to do work on that. It will come back again.

I was asked about the timing of the closing of the register in terms of getting forms signed and so on. The fact that it will be a rolling register will essentially mean that it will be open all year round. It will close 14 days before an electoral event. On the 15th day, a person will need to have his or her application in. The register will reopen on the day after an electoral event and will remain open until 14 days in advance of the next electoral event. Under the heads, we have essentially removed the draft, final and supplementary pieces of the register. We will move to one rolling register that can be added to at any time.

I note the comments on local authorities, staffing resources, data work and advertising campaigns. We will certainly consider them.