Mr. Art O'Leary:

I will start with the questions that are appropriate for us. I was at the citizens' assembly meeting on drug use over the summer. Somebody said something that really changed my mind on how we should approach public engagement and education. A man who worked in a treatment centre for addiction said there is no such thing as hard to reach people or groups, there are only hard to reach services. It dawned on me over the summer that we had been looking at this issue through the wrong end of the telescope. Young people, Travellers, immigrants and even women get up every day and live their lives, and there is no point in me being in an ivory tower saying these people are very hard to reach. Our job is to be where they hang out and to speak and engage in conversations.

We are developing what was envisaged as an education and public engagement programme in the legislation and we are calling it an active participation strategy. This is to cover the full spectrum of Irish society, especially those who do not engage in our electoral process. The committee will get an opportunity to have a look at the strategy, probably in the first quarter of next year. We are really looking forward to this. The group of commission members and the executive team here with me today feel this is an area where we can make a real difference. We will be judged by our success here. As the electoral register gets better and better, and becomes a better record, we will be able to measure our progress with regard to those on the register and those turning up to vote. In the years ahead we look forward to being held to account for our work in this area. It is a place where people should be able to notice a real difference.

With regard to strong agencies, I mentioned earlier we are building an agency that suits the society in which we live. Over the past 30 years there have been eight separate Government decisions to establish an electoral commission but this is the first time it has happened. It has happened at a moment when we can build the agency to fit the requirements of Irish society. We have to defend democracy from attack but also encourage participation and adopt regulatory roles.

We have all the powers we need right now to do everything we have to do. Our in tray as an organisation is chock-a-block. On day one, when you might like to think we would have gathered commission members in a room to speak about strategy and long-term strategy, we were speaking about constituency sizes and the constituency review. We now have an opportunity between electoral events to work on all of the variety of areas. We have enough to be getting on with. We have been given sufficient resources for the next year or two to be able to do everything that has been asked of us.