Mr. Jim O'Keeffe:

On voter registration, I fought nine general elections, and one of the most frustrating things for any politician or aspiring politician is prospective voters who only find out on the day of an election that they are not on the register. I have come across all sorts of situations, including people who have been on the register for years who only become aware during a particular election that there has been removed from the register, and cases of double registration. In my case, my name was registered in Dublin without my knowledge, approval or consent, despite the fact that my voting centre is that of west Cork. This issue needs to be addressed. The views being expressed by practising politicians are very helpful to the debate, but at the end of the day, one of the first tasks for the electoral commission will have to be address of this issue, taking on board all of the views expressed. I agree with Mr. Whelan that the expertise of the 31 local authorities, sheriffs and returning officers in this regard should not be cast aside. This expertise should be availed of in the context of the establishment of a national database. This can only be done by way of an individual voter identification system. In this regard, use of PPS numbers appears to be the obvious answer. I accept there are data protection issues, but this could be addressed by way of inclusion in the relevant legislation of a statutory provision and necessary safeguards. Reference was made to advances in this regard as this process progresses, including the introduction of the new public services card, the new postcode system and so on. Ultimately, we will have to ensure the best system is put in place. It will be up to the electoral commission to address this issue, bearing in mind all of the frustrations and problems associated with this in the past. It was mentioned that there are 6.5 million PPS numbers in use, which is slightly more than the population base. We need to be careful.

On the boundary changes, I still adhere to my view that the electoral commission should handle that on an ongoing basis. What happens at present is that an ad hocboundary commission is set up with a judge and so forth. It does its work on a one-off basis and is then dissolved. I believe that a continuing role looking at the changes that might be desirable would be a better way of doing it, and the electoral commission would be responsible for that. I take the point made by Deputy Fleming that some of the officials involved in the electoral commission might be keen to take the easy way out, but I have a higher opinion of such officials having worked with them on a similar type of business with the SIPO. Ultimately, it will be the members of the commission who would make the final decisions and I believe the point raised by Deputy Fleming could be covered. That is my view.