Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Joyce, Mr. Doorley and Ms Lane for being here and for sharing their insights on behalf of the groups they represent. It is evident that they all want the same thing, as does this committee. I refer to having more diverse Dáil, Seanad and county council chambers. The establishment of this commission will give us the opportunity to get a step closer to achieving that objective. I have a quick question for each of the witnesses, and I promise to keep them brief because I know we are tight on time.

Starting with Mr. Joyce, I am particularly interested to hear more about challenges he spoke about regarding registration. I would love to hear his ideas regarding how we can ensure full voter registration and encourage more participation from his community, not just as voters but also as candidates. Turning to Mr. Doorley, I have rented in four different properties, so I understand fully how difficult it can be to ensure that mobile people, who are often younger renters, are able to easily change their addresses online to allow them to participate fully in democracy. The online voter registration system trialled in Dublin works well from that perspective. I had good feedback from my constituents, and especially from my younger constituents, about the system and it will be rolled out nationally as part of this legislation. I would love to hear the views of Mr. Doorley concerning whether he thinks this initiative is and will help.

Moving to the contribution made by Ms Lane, she referred to women coming up through the councils and I am one of those women. Some 18 months ago, I represented an area along with six other councillors and they are all male. South Dublin County Council is a progressive and fairly well gender balanced council and it is in an urban area. Therefore, there is still an imbalance even in Dublin. Having high percentages of women in certain areas allows us to meet our national gender quotas because it drags up the average, but it still means that areas are being left behind. I do not believe that having 80% or 100% of councillors on some local electoral committees being female and then 0% or 20% on others is what we want. Everyone is aiming for more gender balance overall, and I would love to hear the views of Ms Lane on that point.