John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our two guests, Dr. Reidy and Dr. Suiter, for their insightful contributions. They made a good point about non-voted expenditure versus voted expenditure and the committee will have to reflect on it in compiling our report on this legislation. They were quite critical of the heavily prescribed nature of the structure and function of the commission and gave examples of other countries, including New Zealand, whose board has three members, and the Netherlands, where there are seven members. Do our guests accept that within the structure proposed in the legislation, four people will be appointed through the Public Appointments Service and that, therefore, those independent laypeople will effectively have a majority on the commission? If that is not acceptable, what do they propose in regard to the make-up of the commission?

Turning to the issue of the register, much of this will be teased out with the Data Protection Commissioner when she appears before the committee.

However, when I was asking questions of the Department on this last week, I asked about how the two systems, involving both the existing register and the use of PPS numbers to confirm that people are located at the locations specified, would be married. It was stated that three attempts would be made to confirm whether somebody is at a particular location. I am a little concerned about that answer because it could lead to an inaccurate register for a hell of a long time. Does Dr. Reidy agree that if three attempts must be made to confirm whether somebody is at a location, they should be made within a prescribed timeframe, be it over a three-month period or a six-month period? I am acutely conscious that if we are to do this exercise and improve our register, which both delegates have accepted has not been up to scratch in that it has been oversubscribed in many cases and undersubscribed in others, we really need to tackle the issue of people being registered at multiple locations and people who are not registered at all. If we really are to tackle it, we will have to remove people after making a reasonable effort to check whether they are at a location. Should this be within a prescribed timeframe?