Professor Michael Marsh:

An electoral commission should take overall responsibility for an electoral register. The advantage of the new Eircodes, about which I know very little, is that they have a unique address. Everybody in my road has the same address so it is not unique and the new codes might make it marginally easier to locate an individual at a precise address. The will at the centre is the most important thing and if there is an agency dedicated to providing us with a good electoral register we are more likely to have one. Then we might see an end, for better or for worse, of people flying back from Australia to vote as these people will not be on the electoral register now that they no longer live here.