Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the attendees. It is a very interesting conversation. I am struck by the point that the electoral register is the beginning and the end of the electoral process in many respects. I am still confused. Senator Fitzpatrick asked a searing question in respect of whose function it is. It is the function of the Department and the individual local authority, and there is a bit for the Electoral Commission in it. It is extremely frustrating for somebody to turn up on polling day and find they are not on the register. They may not be on the register because they have never been on it or because they are on it somewhere else, for example, if they have moved from Dublin to Cork and have not been re-registered. To a lesser extent perhaps, there are people who are no longer resident in the area or are perhaps deceased but have not been removed from the register. What end destination do the witnesses see in terms of the flexibility to fix the register? There will always be the challenge of having it 100% correct. If I find out at the appropriate time, can it be fixed? What is that appropriate time? Is it envisaged that technology will allow somebody to register to vote in their local area up to the last minute? There is now a deadline for registering which is some number of days before polling. The technology surely should enable it to be more flexible than that. What data does the Electoral Commission have? We heard the commission has got returns back from each of the 31 local authorities that are involved in compiling registers. It obviously has a hierarchy and knows which of them are good performers. What indices are used to measure that? Which local authorities are good and which are bad, if that is not an unfair question? I would like to know.

This is informed by personal experience of election campaigns, being both a candidate and an activist. There is nothing worse than landing on a door and asking if Mr. Jim Murphy is inside, and meeting a woman who says Jim died two years ago, while you are looking at a register that has Jim still on it. There could be someone else in the area and you find the deadline has gone for registering, you are knocking on their door and they cannot vote at all. What is the end destination in terms of compiling the register and where we are at in that regard? The Electoral Commission has the data and knows who is good and who is bad. Maybe we could get some information on that.

I would like to ask Mr. Burke, who may be the only witness who has the relevant experience of individual constituencies, about impersonation. Has he encountered instances of that? What are the consequences? Have there been prosecutions? I have not heard of any prosecutions for impersonation in recent years. The last one I can recall, and it might be best if I did not mention it, was a rather high-profile case some years back, probably before most of the people in this room were actively involved in politics. I do not hear of impersonation any more. That does mean I am naive enough to believe it does not happen. Has it happened in the Dublin constituencies? Have there been prosecutions? Impersonation is a serious offence and it should be highlighted and prosecuted where there is evidence of it.

The other issue I would like to raise in the context of compiling the register is the different demarcations for the entitlement to vote in Dáil, local and European elections, and particularly in constitutional referenda. It seems an almost arbitrary determination. Anybody who might have a foreign-sounding name is almost automatically excluded from being entitled to vote in a referendum, although many of these people hold citizenship and should be entitled to vote. I would like to know how that is determined in compiling the register. What data is used? Is it up to the individual to bring his or her citizenship entitlement to vote in a referendum to the attention of those compiling the register?

Is there somebody sitting behind a desk who knows the person's status and eligibility to vote in a local election, Dáil election or a referendum? How is that determined? I apologise for taking a scattergun approach.