Mr. Art O'Leary:

I will pick up on a couple of points. I first want to congratulate Senator Clonan's son, Eoghan. As your campaign manager, he is a beacon for people with a disability. You were successfully elected, and if you cannot see it you cannot be it. He did a terrific job, and the Senator does a terrific job highlighting the role Eoghan played in his campaign, which was important, and did not go unnoticed.

I will speak to couple of issues in the Seanad case. The Supreme Court judgment in the Heneghan case obviously made for stark reading. We are all awaiting the Government response with regard to what will happen with the Seanad seats. A turnout of 17% is unacceptable from any of our perspectives. The difficulty is that the electoral register database is woefully out of date. The Trinity and university authorities are writing to people at addresses they had in college in some cases, and these people are long gone. There was talk during the course of the case that the Electoral Commission might have a role in looking at the electoral register for the Seanad university seats. That is certainly something we would have to look at. We have a role in post Seanad election reviews. After every Seanad election we will have a look at everything that works well, and everything that does not. The electoral register is something we will be focusing on. It is a challenge because our job is to encourage as many people as possible to engage; 17% is not acceptable.

On the subject of Eoghan registering the day before the election, there is good news on that front. The Electoral Reform Act now allows for rolling registration. You can pre-register as a 16-and 17-year-old now-----