Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

Sometimes it is unsatisfactory when the Second Stage debate on a Bill is interrupted by an interval of a number of weeks. However, when the debate adjourned, I was discussing the provisions for updating the electoral register. While there is a provision for adding names to the register up to 14 days before an election, I submit that a similar provision allowing for the removal of names from a register up to 14 days before an election should be included. Frequently, the fact that large numbers of people do not live at the registered addresses is only noticed when candidates call to canvass those areas during an election. I submit that a provision should be included to permit removing such people from the register up to 14 days before the election. It should be as easy to remove a person from the register as it is to add one to the register. Perhaps a temptation exists for parties or unscrupulous people to attempt to impersonate and use the votes of people who are registered but not living at a particular address or locality.

I am aware a provision now exists to enable the presiding officer to check people periodically for identification. I believe the recommendation is that every tenth, 12th, 15th or 20th person should be checked for identification. However, even that is not satisfactory and can be carried too far. For example, during the recent Údarás na Gaeltachta elections in the Galway West constituency, a presiding officer checked every voter for identification which greatly slowed the process. He was not from the area and I believe he had very little Irish. Even the parish priest was checked for identification when he came in to vote. The parish priest told him with his tongue in his cheek that while everyone in the locality knew the priest, no one knew the presiding officer. Possibly that particular presiding officer carried his duties beyond what was required.

I note that section 6 deals with election expenses and what candidates are permitted to spend during an election. I also note that following the review of this area, there are now a number of points on which outgoing candidates will have extra advantages over new candidates. For example, postage and any secretarial usage will no longer be included. The amount candidates are permitted to spend in elections is already far too great. I understand that this change came about because a potential difficulty arose regarding the definition of an election expense at a European election following the enactment of section 33 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2004. Section 33 of the 2004 Act provides for the deletion of paragraph 2(a) of the Schedule of the Electoral Acts. This will now debar free postal services provided by An Post, free services provided by an individual, a service provided by an employee of a political party and normal media coverage from being counted as expenses to European election candidates. I presume the same will now apply to Dáil candidates.

I do not know the situation regarding possible restrictions on candidates' expenditure before a general election is called. In several cases, campaigns become ongoing activities once half the Dáil term is over and candidates continue to spend money on advertisements and various other matters before a general election is called. Is there any restriction on the amount of money that can be spent before a general election is called?

Moreover, is there any restriction on the use of Ministers in an election? I was intrigued by the passing of the Dormant Accounts (Amendment) Bill in this House a short time ago and listened attentively to the debate. One would think that butter would not melt in the mouth of the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, as he defended transferring the responsibility for making disbursements from the fund from the Dormant Accounts Fund Disbursements Board to the relevant Minister and outlined all the safeguards included in the new Bill. I have experienced a practice which is certainly undemocratic and which could be called election spending. The lowest level of election we had recently in my constituency was for Údarás na Gaeltachta. The Minister for Finance arrived in the constituency the night before the election and toured a number of places in the constituency, accompanied by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív. They called into small halls and various other places and made a variety of promises regarding funding for facilities, such as €50,000 for a group water scheme, €500,000 for pitches and more money for roads. This took place after a day's worth of canvassing by the Minister for Finance on behalf of the Fianna Fáil candidates. This type of behaviour is undemocratic because the resources of the State — taxpayers' money — including a State car, should not be used for partisan political purposes. It should be classed as election expenditure rather than the amount a candidate might spend in the election.

I have received representations from the Save Leitrim campaign about this Bill. The campaign group wished to meet the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government. I advised the campaign group, whose aims I agree with because I do not agree with dividing up the county of Leitrim, which has the lowest county population in the country, between Roscommon and Sligo, that it would be better to talk to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. I heard Deputy Ellis argue in this House against the division of Leitrim. The solution is in his own hands; he should vote against this Bill as a native of Leitrim who passionately believes that the county should be left wholly in one constituency. I advised the Save Leitrim campaign that it could steer its campaign in that direction. At least, Deputy Ellis should table amendments and vote for an amendment that would leave Leitrim in one piece. It is a certainty that once the report of the commission on the revision of constituencies is received, the Government parties will pass it.

Another matter to which I would like to refer is electronic voting. It has gone off the agenda but the problems it poses have not gone away because the machines are still being stored at considerable expense to the State. The cost of their storage is apparently highest in the constituency of the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Martin Cullen, who attempted to introduce electronic voting.

I was a member of the Committee on the Environment and Local Government when it dealt with the issue of electronic voting. We pleaded with the then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, to listen to the case being put against electronic voting. I will give the House an example of the arrogance shown by the Minister in his dealings with the committee on that issue. In early December 2003, the committee expressed reservations about the Minister's haste in proceeding with electronic voting in the absence of necessary checks and balances. All the committee wanted was the safeguard of a printed, paper trail account of the vote. We were not opposed to electronic voting but we objected to the Minister's plans for the same reason that the wider public objected to them. When Progressive Democrats Members saw that public opinion was against electronic voting, they persuaded the Government to set up the commission which eventually prevented the Government from proceeding with electronic voting.

At that meeting on 18 December 2003, the early part of the meeting was taken up with testimony from experts on both sides, including the manufacturers of the electronic voting machines, officials from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and computer experts from NUI Maynooth who argued against electronic voting and produced 40 questions about it to which they wanted answers. A constructive debate took place in the morning and the committee returned in the afternoon expecting to receive answers to the questions. However, the Minister had obviously listened to the debate because, when the committee resumed, the Fianna Fáil members proposed that we proceed with electronic voting. Without any debate or answers to the 40 questions, the committee passed the proposal that electronic voting be introduced.

The contract was signed as early as 19 December 2003 and I discovered under the Freedom of Information Act that €20 million worth of electronic voting machines had already been bought and were in the country. The Minister, for whatever reason and I suspect the worst kind, was determined to introduce electronic voting. As I suggested in last night's debate on health, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government should put the machines up for sale, take the best price he can get if he can get anyone to buy €50 million worth of machines, and spend the proceeds on the health service or another useful area.

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