Mr. Art O'Leary:

I am delighted the Deputy mentioned data. This has been a bug bear of mine for 30 years now. As a nation, we have not yet developed enough data to be able to make decisions on this. Political parties with manifestoes get elected and say all the things they are going to do in government, etc., then they engage with stakeholders, the Civil Service, etc., and that produces policy. One of the foundation stones of the draft research programme is the longitudinal study that we are recommending. That is where we will start building the data the Deputy talks about. I do not like exit polls. I know they are a great predictor of electoral outcomes but they talk to people who vote.

Nobody talks to people who do not vote right now. This is what we will do with the longitudinal study, and this is something that will hopefully continue long after I am gone. What we are talking about here is a 25-year study where we build a database of information and data on which we can make proper decisions regarding electoral reform. It is so important. We will start this next year. It is something I am really keen to do. It will be a very important point as we will talk to thousands of people after electoral events, and not just people who voted. We will also do trackers during the year to ask people whether they know there are elections coming up, the key issues are facing them, etc. We have a tender advertisement out at the moment for a national electoral and democracy study management board. We are looking for some really talented experts in this area, including academics. We will have an international expert as well. The group will probably be chaired by me because this is a significant priority. To my mind, it is the jewel in the crown of the research programme.