Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am sure we will continue some of these themes anyway. I thank the witnesses for their presentations. On behalf of returning officers, and election polling staff and count staff everywhere, I acknowledge the enormous effort people make. We have all fought any number of elections as successful and unsuccessful candidates and as directors of elections. I am never not impressed by the level of efficiency in any of the polling stations and count centres I have been in and I have done quite a lot of them.

I am interested to know whether a similar issue regarding staff and remuneration applies to count centres. In some senses, while a polling station is a long shift at 16 hours, it starts and finishes, but a count centre is very different. For those of us who have had the nervousness of very late-night counts, are similar staffing difficulties being experienced there? If Mr. Burke does not get the positive response he is hoping for from the Department, does he anticipate problems with polling centres and count centres in future?

I compliment Mr. O'Leary on the very successful output of the commission since it was established. He is almost a de facto member of the committee at this stage. The committee had very strong cross-party support both for the establishment of the commission and the work it is doing. Specifically, I am interested in three supplementary matters to Mr. O'Leary's presentation. To carry on with the issue of registration, the commission's report will be laid before the Houses at the end of this year. I presume that could have recommendations and actions for the registration authorities and potentially the Department and the commission. Will he talk us through whether there are recommendations and actions that need to be taken? If these are not taken by individual registration authorities, what happens next? Whose responsibility is it then to - "enforce" might be too strong a word - ensure compliance? Does that rest with the Department or the commission? Given many local authorities have very significant staffing challenges, their problems might be that they want to do X, Y and Z but there are staffing challenges. That does not rest with the Department of housing but ultimately with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and the Government. How do we resolve those challenges?

With respect to the research, that first piece of research and the study are very welcome and very good. Is that all done in-house? Is the commission working with folks from our political science community who have been involved in previously funded Government research on that? While voter registration and turnout were mentioned, not much was said on worker action on those. Will the witnesses give us a sense of what might be coming down the line with respect to all of that?

I commend the Department on its work, so it does not feel left out from the compliments. We normally give it a hard time. On the other areas it is looking at, are there any specific timelines relating to any of the pieces of work outlined in the four or five bullet points on page 2?