Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests. I return to the common theme running through the three submissions, that is, promoting politician participation and encouarging and supporting candidacy. That is what is coming back to me continuously. There are two words jumping out at me. Mr. Joyce has articulated this particularly well. It is about confidence and about participation. We see this with the demographics and the people engaged in politics. I was a member of Gaisce, the President's Award, and was always amazed when certain groups were never represented in the early days of Gaisce. We began to ask why. Why was it that the private schools were engaging in this and why were we finding it difficult to get into certain communities? We decided, therefore, to carry out an outreach programme. Mr. Doorley spoke earlier on of the importance of outreach and engaging with people. He talked about the Vincentians and I am very familiar with the work they did. When the Vincentians went out to communities, they went to Traveller communities and all sorts of communities. They went to vocational schools and all over the country. Suddenly they got engagement and when one asked those people if they would be interested in being in politics they would say they had no education or had no confidence or they could not speak. They would say they had nothing to say or to contribute. That is what people feel. Therefore, we must go way back if we want to engage in political participation. It goes back to primary schools, back to those young kids who are recycling cans and are heads of committees. We are giving our young boys and girls confidence to be leaders, to be vocal, to be articulate, to be able to be listened to, to be able to be valued, to be able to be authentic and, more importantly, to be believed for who they are and respected for who they are. That is why we must go back that far, because where we give confidence, where we give support, where we give love, acknowledgement and affirmation, we build confidence. People then have that confidence to participate in their communities and in their lives. There is much work to be done on that and it is particularly worth saying.

I was interested in the commentary on the electoral register. One of our guests, I think it was Mr. Doorley, said the commission should have control. An independent commission should have absolute control over the administration of the register. It is important.

Turning to questions, it slightly touches on the area we were talking about, that is, the registration of 16- and 17-year-olds but let us hear what our guests have to say about giving votes to 16-year-olds because once a person has a vote he or she has equity in it, he or she has an interest in it and will engage. I am not going to be registering for something two years down the road. Most of us do not do our tax compliance certificates until the last minute. By contrast, when someone tells me I can have a stake in my local council or local community, in who shapes our swimming pools, who develops our sports pitches, that that person listens to me and is involved in a whole range of things, then I am interested. Thus we must have voting with the registration, otherwise we are not going to have the take-up.

I will say two things and conclude. Women's participation in politics is also a common theme running through this. Are any of the groups aware of a circular or correspondence issued in May by the Minister on the subject of participation of women in local government in the next local elections? I ask because the focus is on political parties and I am an Independent Senator and was an Independent councillor as well. I noted no mention of independent-minded people in the political process. It is all framed around engagement with the registered political parties. If our guests are not aware of it I will send them each of these circulars before I close business today. Secondly, our guests might tell me what single thing they think we could include in this legislation that would in some way improve it, from their perspectives.