Mr. Brian Sheehan:

I thank the committee for the invitation to appear before it to address the use of the electoral register by political parties. We welcome the scrutiny the committee is giving to the issue. It is very important voters have confidence in the security and uses of the electoral register. The Social Democrats makes limited use of the electoral register. We do not engage in any processing of the register and do not augment the information on it. We continue to comply with the letter and spirit of the data protection legislation.

We have been advocates of enhanced processing and centralised management of the electoral register to ensure all those eligible to vote can vote and to ensure there are accurate statistics around turnout and constituency sizes, so we very much welcome many of the proposals in the Bill. I am very happy to answer any questions the committee may have.