Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Will the Minister of State not accept that some common sense is needed here? The people who are permanent full-time civil servants in the Central Statistics Office do not care about the electoral register. They are not facing an election in the next 18 months. All Members of this House and those who want to get into it will be facing an election. We know the electoral register is inaccurate. Nobody is disputing the figures that have been mentioned. What can we do about it practically?

I accept there are legal constraints regarding confidentiality. However, if we are going to spend €15 million to put a group of approximately 4,500 together — based on the Minister of State's first reply — to call to every house in the country, could they not take with them voter registration forms and hand these in at the same time to households? When they come back to collect the completed census forms they can take with them the other forms which the local authorities will have issued. At that point the enumerator can hand over the voter registration form to the relevant authority and it can be processed in the normal way.

I raised this matter last Friday with the Dublin City Manager. It is simply not possible now for many of the council's enumerators to get to many of the households because of the changing nature of work as well as matters pertaining to occupation and residency.

Local authorities, for whom the electoral register is not a top priority, do not have the money to carry out additional work. There is clear evidence of a deliberate stuffing of the register in some parts of Dublin. If the Minister of State wishes, I will refer him to Deputy Gay Mitchell who will quote chapter and verse for his benefit.

There is no point in coming back to the House in 18 months and stating the general election was unfair because of disputed numbers. As someone who once lost his seat by 37 votes, I know numbers are very tight. Some common sense is needed. Will the Minister of State raise the issue with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to ensure some measure of co-ordination between local authorities is achieved? We should try to get good value for money out of the €50 million we will spend on this census.

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