Mr. Art O'Leary:

Gabhaim míle buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach as an gcuireadh a bheith leis an gcomhchoiste ag an gcruinniú tábhachtach seo. As the Chairman mentioned, I am joined today by Tim Carey, head of electoral operations for An Coimisiún Toghcháin, and Mary-Clare O’Sullivan, head of electoral integrity and research.

It is now 19 months since An Coimisiún Toghcháin was established as Ireland’s independent electoral commission. In that time, our growing team has delivered our functions in respect of two national elections, two referendums, a mayoral election, one Dáil constituency review and two European Parliament constituency reviews. We have overseen the casting of 6.7 million individual ballots in national votes this year with the obvious possibility of more to come between now and March. An coimisiún has published our first constituency review, our first post-electoral event review, our first referendum information campaign report and our framework on online electoral process information and has established our priorities for the period to 2026 through our inaugural strategy statement and our first research programme. We will start the process of producing our first public engagement and education strategy shortly and are now finalising the data and detail on our assessment of Ireland’s electoral registers as maintained by the registration authorities. Of course, we are also making our preparations for a general election before March of next year, the subsequent Seanad elections and the presidential election. Our independent status sees us report directly to the Oireachtas and I am happy that this is my fifth appearance before these Houses and my second appearance before this particular committee.

For today’s discussion, it is important to demarcate between the administration of electoral events, which largely falls to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the local authorities and returning officers, and our purpose as an coimisiún, which is to safeguard and strengthen democracy in Ireland by building public understanding, participation and trust in the electoral system. I would like to briefly mention three aspects of that role.

The first is electoral registration. The state of our electoral registers is a long-standing issue of some concern to the Members of these Houses. Our function is to oversee the electoral register and we have engaged directly with every local authority through what has been a particularly busy and challenging year for all franchise staff. To be clear, we are finding that there are wide variances in the resourcing of local authorities’ franchise functions and in the performance of those functions. Our report, which will be laid before the Houses and published towards the end of this year, will set out our overall assessment of the state of Ireland’s electoral registers with regard to accuracy, completeness and quality.

An coimisiún has already shown that our campaigns and public awareness work has an impact on people’s actions and democratic engagement. Importantly, we believe we are earning the public’s trust as a newly established body. In the last week of the 8 March referendums, more people looked to the information provided by an coimisiún to inform their vote than any other source. Some 84% of people said they trusted our independent referendum information and 78% said our referendum information booklet delivered to their homes was helpful in their voting decision. Our media campaigns on voter registration have contributed to over 250,000 people joining the register between December 2023 and June 2024. Our education campaign entitled “Don’t spoil your day” to cut the number of spoilt ballots in the recent June local and European elections saw a significant 29% reduction in the level of spoilt votes seen in those ballots.

There was a reduction of 31,000 spoilt votes since 2019, despite a larger number of people voting.

Research is one of our most significant and innovative functions. Our first research programme sets out our research priorities for the next three years across five strands. It identifies immediate priorities for this year, including developing a longitudinal national election and democracy study for Ireland; research focused on postering; voting at 16; a review of the 1997 Electoral Act; items arising from the most recent constituency review; and research on the democratic engagement of underrepresented groups. As the first step in the development of the national election and democracy study, a pilot study was commissioned for the 8 March referendums, and two surveys conducted around the local, European and Limerick mayoral elections on 7 June.

The value of this kind of detailed, rigorous data is already clear as it is being used not only by ourselves at an coimisiún but also by political scientists, journalists, political parties and candidates to gain deeper understandings of Ireland’s voters, their knowledge, voting experience and perspectives on our democratic system more broadly.

As one of the longest continuous democracies in the world, people in Ireland have always had great trust in our system of voting and in the integrity of elections in this country. Voter registration and turnout are obviously key metrics of democratic participation and must be a key focus for us, but we also need to act to promote people’s medium and long-term democratic engagement through wider education and regular conversations with people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our democratic process does not start or end with the ballot paper landing in the box. The challenge to us is in building a sustained culture and tradition of democratic understanding, participation and empowerment that is passed on within generations from parent and grandparent to child. I am happy to take any questions the Committee might have.