Mr. Joseph Burke:

It is challenging, but we monitor what is going on. If there is a snap election, then it may take us completely by surprise. We have, though, been planning for the general election since the local and European elections finished. I suppose the biggest difficulty is securing the count centre. If you are trying to book a count centre it is necessary to be able to give people the dates when the count is going to take place. If we are only getting three or four weeks' notice of the date, then that is a significant issue in relation to the count centres. At the moment, certainly, it is causing me a little bit of anxiety as regards the count centre. In fairness, places that are usually used for a count centre are commercial locations used for many other events too. They cannot hold a spot open for me indefinitely, so there comes a crunch point at which I need to be able to say I need the space or I do not.

We manage that and we have not ever had a situation where we have not been able to get somewhere for a count, but it is certainly a challenge. It is unique to the general election because as the Chair says, with the other events we know some time in advance when they are going to be.