Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will forget about that headset. Apologies for that delay. I thank Mr. Joyce, Mr. Doorley and Ms Lane for their presentations. I would like to hear from them rather than listen to myself speak. It comes back to the same issues with respect to what needs to be done from the point of view of the legislation and the electoral commission. The only pontificating I will do is on the electoral register. We have talked for a long time and I want to get our guests' views on voter registration being automatic. It must be within our gift to do that. People say there are difficulties in associating personal public service, PPS, numbers with the electoral register but it cannot be beyond our ability to solve that problem. It is not a rolling register in that it is not possible to register for part of the year. When elections are called, a temporary register is in place which involves people having to complete a form and bring it to a Garda station to be signed. That needs to be sorted. If our guests have a view on that I would be delighted to hear it.

Reference was made to hard-to-reach communities. Mr. Joyce represents Travellers specifically. It is a matter of getting people to engage in the system. What can be done to strengthen the electoral commission to enable it to do that? I would to hear our guests' responses to those questions.