Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail)
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We will not ask them for the outcome of it either. I thank the witnesses for being here. This is important subject matter, so we appreciate their time and the work they all do to ensure our democracy functions to its best capacity. I will raise three areas of particular interest in my first round that I would like to explore with them. One is the register integrity, the second is voter personation activity or lack thereof, and the third is political advertising. Register integrity is referenced in at least two of the statements. Mr. Burke said he deals with the register he is given, so he is out of this round of questioning and can relax for the moment. Both of the opening statements talk about improvement and working towards improving the quality of the register, the accuracy and all of that. However, it is not clear to me who actually owns that process. Is it the 31 individual local authorities? Is it the Department? Is it the Electoral Commission? Most important, how is that improvement being measured and how will it be reported on? That was not initially clear to me.

I turn to voter personation.

This is a question that Mr. Burke is probably best positioned to answer. We invited him to this meeting because he is the returning officer for Dublin, which is an area with a big voting population, busy polling stations and where a good proportion of the electorate is also quite transient. From reading his opening statement and my knowledge derived in practice, the inspectors are the only individuals tasked with writing a report on what event, if any, occurred in a polling station. That is my understanding. It appears, therefore, that there have been no reports of personation. Is that correct? If not, how is that actually reported?

Mr. Burke mentioned payments to staff. I appreciate where he is coming from in trying to recruit 1,200 staff. Every sector is struggling in this regard, so I do not know how he would not be. It is incredibly challenging to do it on a temporary basis and at short notice. The rate of pay was referred to. What is the hourly rate of pay? How does Mr. Burke feel his discussions are progressing to try to make these posts a more attractive proposition in a market where there is full employment? What training is given to those who work in the polling stations to deal with and tackle personation?

Turning to political advertising, I guess these questions are for the witnesses from the Electoral Commission and the Department. Part 4 of the Electoral Reform Act 2022 has not been enacted. I appreciate that guidelines have been issued, but they are guidelines. If an election were to be held within the next six months, it is unlikely that Part 4 of the Act will have been enacted by then. Can the witnesses share with us their level of confidence regarding how engaged the very large online service providers are in adopting and complying with the guidelines? How is that working in practice? What level of transparency do the witnesses feel they are getting from the very large operators such as TikTok, Meta and whoever else? Are those companies sharing data with the Electoral Commission and the Department? What level of confidence is there in the accuracy and veracity of that data? How is it being verified? Is it being done in-house or is there a reliance on external data experts to look at it?