Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for commenting on the pre-legislative scrutiny process. As members, we all discovered that the process itself was very valuable in teasing out not only the issues within the Bill but those that might not be in it. I first want to say that I welcome the electoral reform Bill. It is something on which we have been waiting for the best part of three decades. I know each of the parties were very strong supporters of it being in the programme for Government. The Minister of State has been particularly anxious to make sure this legislation is passed. I, therefore, welcome all that; it is progress.

We are in the unenviable position, if I may use the analogy, that a bird in the hand is better than two in the wild. There are things in the Bill we would like to improve. In doing that, do we delay the overall implementation of the commission and seek amendments or do we look for commitments from the commission that this work will begin immediately? Let me go through some of that with the Minister of State. I will use my time as I do not have any particular questions for the Minister of State. He has been very good in engaging with me personally on the issue.

Certainly during the process of the pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, for me online advertising, data protection and control and the engagement of political parties were three issues that came to the fore. Our academic colleagues made very valuable points to the effect that the commission seemed to reflect an older style of public body, one with officeholders holding posts by nature of their office. Perhaps a smaller, more streamlined, expert-driven panel might be a better model for the commission and I ask the Minister of State to look at that as he brings the Bill forward. Perhaps we can make it more focused, more streamlined and include more independent expertise.

The issue of the commission's budget came up, as did that budget being subject to a Vote and the question of the commission's independence. We do not know what particular colour a future Government might hold but I would like to see as much independence as possible going to the commission rather than the Government being able to strangle its funding.

A stronger research remit and funding for research was also mentioned, and I support that.

The last issue I thought interesting was how we have given both the commission and local authorities responsibility for the register. It is fair to say we have a very strong and robust democratic system in Ireland but equally we have a very inaccurate electoral register. I am not certain the current scheme gives responsibility for ensuring the accuracy of the register to any one body. While I understand local expertise must be included, I am unsure what the commission adds to the current structure aside from an oversight role.

The area of social media has become much bigger and the committee has agreed to have a number of modules in the autumn on the issue of online advertising. One must ask whether proceeding with this section of the Bill is wise. We are essentially enabling legislation which allows online political advertising on a legislative basis for the first time. Despite this we specifically preclude political advertising for local radio stations, which are often the backbone of good, independent political coverage. At the same time, when the online media companies came before us they ran a million miles away from being called publishers or from having any responsibility to provide balance and so on. We must ask ourselves if we should allow revenue to go to organisations which do not want to regulate or be publishers of material while at the same time denying funding to those bodies that already are doing that and are giving us good, independent news coverage. We must think about the Future of Media Commission and how it relates to this. We should perhaps suspend online political advertising until we have robust legislation in this area. I say that in a personal capacity but the section of the Bill on that does not do enough for me. The whole area of trolling and anonymous accounts was raised as well. We need to look at that. It does not fall within this Bill but it impacts the number of people willing to participate as elected representatives.

The last issue, which I have not time to go into, is the whole area of education and participation. I particularly welcome the announcement this morning to fund women's caucuses to ensure female participation at local government level. It is very welcome.

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