Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and all in the Department for the work they have done on bringing forward the electoral reform Bill. Everyone has said how important and long overdue it is. I commend the Minister of State and the Government on having moved forward so swiftly with this. It is really important. Our democracy depends on free and fair elections, and at a time when our democracy is under attack, this could not be more important. That is why it has engaged people from all across society and stakeholders of all ages and interests. That is really welcome. For it to be worthwhile, however, we must get this right. We will continue to put work into ensuring our pre-legislative scrutiny report is robust and comprehensive.

I wish to raise and draw the Minister of State's attention to two particular issues today. We live in an increasingly software-driven and data-driven society. It is very important and welcome that young people have access to more information and that we all have access to more information which allows us to engage and potentially be informed. It is also chilling to know, however, that many of the platforms being utilised to disseminate information very clearly state they have no authority or interest in exercising or ensuring the veracity of the content or information they spread, share and broadcast. That is a chilling fact we need to accept and that the electoral commission needs to be prepared to respond to. I have concerns that we need to be more ambitious. We need the electoral commission to be robust and future-proofed. On that basis, it potentially needs to be strengthened in a number of areas.

I very much appreciate the information Ms Woods shared with us in terms of the electoral register. When we talk about politics and elections, the data start with the electoral register. That is the start of the data trail for us. I am not sure we have yet got to a point with the proposal around the electoral register changes, all of which I support so far. We need, however, to be ambitious about moving to this centralised model whereby it is fully online, centrally managed, centrally verified and is, as a consequence, resilient and robust. We need, therefore, to tease that out. We, as a committee, will make strong recommendations in that area.

We also need to review the activity of the electoral commission and its period of time being limited to elections. Politics is a 24-7 activity. It is about people and making decisions around people's lives. The electoral commission should not be switching on and off. That is not to say it will close its doors; I am not suggesting that. It needs to have a remit, however. Politics is a business that does not stop.

Influencing, electioneering, and political campaigning, are done on an ongoing basis. The electoral commission should therefore observe, monitor, and try to inform and strengthen that activity for our society on an ongoing basis. It has been mentioned a couple of times, but on the two activities of political purposes and political and political advertising. I hear acknowledge what the Minister of State said about the commission looking at it. He has acknowledged publicly that there are issues with the Electoral Act 1997, which is accepted. I heard that it will be referred to the commission. I would like to understand the thinking behind that. I had hoped that there would be an opportunity for us to deal with that issue when bringing this legislation forward. I appreciate there will be a bit of work in that. However, we are going to set the electoral commission up to do its job and to deliver for our democracy. It will be worth us trying to address that "political purposes" definition before we move forward with the legislation. However, I commend the Minister of State and commend all of the staff in the Department on their work. We, as a committee, are committed to supporting them to complete the work as soon as possible.