Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to answer all of the questions, but I may not get to do so in the one minute available to me. However, I am sure others will ask similar questions so I will answer them at some point.

I want it to be clear that we do not take information from any source, be that a constituency case file or social media interactions, and cross-reference those with the electoral register. It is not possible to do it on the Abú system and we have never wanted to do it and it would not be appropriate to do it. When a person comes into my constituency office and asks me to take up a constituency case and he or she gives me private information for the purposes of that work, that information is stored separately in my constituency case file. Some of our members use the Oireachtas system for that purpose, but I am a little old fashioned and I still use paper and pen that is adequately secured in paper files. None of that private information, for example PPS numbers and so on, is in any way cross-referenced with the electoral register or uploaded into Abú. As Senator Fitzpatrick will know, I am very active on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We do not, and cannot, take information from social media and upload it onto the Abú system. None of the propositions about which Senator Fitzpatrick inquired take place.

On the second issue, it is probably a mischaracterisation to talk about a national database. When one logs onto the Abú system, as I would do as a candidate or director of elections, I can only access the register to which I am entitled, which is the Dublin Mid West register. The only people who will have access to that register are me, as a candidate, or my director of elections or director of canvass. We will only use that register during the course of elections for the purposes of canvassing, knocking on doors, talking to people, persuading them to vote for us and so on. If those people voluntarily confirm to us that they will vote for us we take a note of that such that on election day, Get Out the Vote operation, we can interact with those people.