Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I wish to share time with the Minister of State, Deputy Kitt, and he will take five minutes.

I welcome this opportunity to debate in the House tonight the important issue of the electoral register. As the House is aware, entry on the register is key to giving reality to the individual's right and responsibility to participate in the democratic system.

There are a number of problems with the Labour Party Bill, although it has good intentions. We all recognise that the accuracy of the electoral register needs to be improved. This Bill, despite the good intentions behind it, will not achieve that. The Bill effectively proposes the creation of a new quango to take on the task of supervising how local authorities do their work in this area. It does not offer practical solutions to improving the register in the short term.

Section 6(1)(b) sets out the task of the commission, which is "to carry out on behalf of registration authorities such of their registration duties as the Commissioner agrees or decides." This happens without any stated basis, due process or consultation, and a local authority can lose its registration functions. In section 6(3), the commissioner has the power to do all that is necessary to perform his or her functions under the Bill. This would create an all-powerful quango. What about all the talk we hear of accountability through Ministers to the Dáil?

There is reference in sections 18 and 19 to the commissioner intervening in the day-to-day work of registration authorities and issuing directions to them. However, the reader is given no indication as to what the directions might cover and no test of reasonableness is required to be met. In this House the Opposition parties have complained, not unreasonably, about the creation of too many quangos, and that this has removed matters from Dáil scrutiny, yet this Bill intends to do just that.

Section 20, relating to PPS numbers, interests me. It should be considered in the context of the reality that information held within the social welfare system will not readily match with people on the register because of the lack of individual identifiers. A complete national canvas for numbers would be needed, with no guarantee that people will co-operate. Even if they did, it would be a massive task that could not be addressed between now and 1 November next.

Deputy Gilmore would not intend that it would be an offence to refuse to give your PPS number at the door or that people would not be allowed on the register if they did not co-operate. To say, as in section 20(1), that people shall comply with such a requirement begs many questions. What about the powers in section 20(1)(b) for local authorities to compile a huge database of personal information? Section 23 seems to introduce into Irish law the concept of compulsory electoral registration, something that I would have thought merits fuller debate and consideration.

I could go on but it is clear that these unplanned and poorly thought out proposals are unworkable. I say this without in any way intending to diminish the sincerity of Deputy Gilmore's concerns. I have no doubt that setting out on the diversions created by this Bill would result in chaos in the electoral registration process and damage to the democratic system. The problem with the Bill is that while Deputy Gilmore is correct about problems existing with the register, this legislation would not effect a change if enacted in the short term. It would not effect an improvement between now and November, when the new draft register is due to be published. It would not resolve anything by June 2007 and could well be open to legal challenge given the confusion that surrounds it. No responsible Government could support the Bill.

It is generally acknowledged that the task of compiling the register has become more difficult over the years. This is because of reasons suggested by Opposition Deputies, such as rapid population growth and physical development, increased personal mobility and growing numbers of gated apartment complexes. I share the aversion of the Deputies to those. Other reasons include greater access to third level education, increased rates of new household formation and other changes. There is also a general busyness in modern society. All these make compilation of the register more difficult, but they do not excuse the point being made by a number of Deputies that there has been a degree of indolence which is unforgivable in some local authority areas.

I acknowledge, as I did on previous occasions in this House and elsewhere, that the quality of the register is not satisfactory. In 2002 there was a difference between the number of people on the register who were eligible to vote at elections and the relevant census data for that year of up to 300,000. I previously pointed out that this does not take into account people who should have been on the register but were not. The actual number is higher, and we could dispute the figure, but it is nonetheless a figure in which none of us can take pleasure.

Problems with voting registers are not unique to Ireland. It might be useful to quote from a study of electoral system design published in 2005 by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. The following is from paragraph 213:

Voter registration is the most complex and controversial, and often least successful, part of electoral administration. By its nature it involves collecting in a standardised format specific information from a vast number of voters, and then arranging and distributing these data in a form that can be used at election time — moreover, in such a way as to ensure that only eligible electors engage in the voting process and to guard against multiple voting, personation and the like.

Deputies should excuse me for the long sentence but I am not the author. It continues:

The political sensitivity of these matters and the laborious nature of the task itself mean that voter registration is often one of the most expensive and time-consuming parts of the entire electoral process.

This shows clearly the difficult issues involved in electoral registration and the fact that concerns in this area are not unique to Ireland.

I wish to set out my own and the Government's approach to the electoral register. We are determined to see action taken to secure a significant improvement in the quality of the register with local authorities to make a concerted effort to improve the register for their areas. The core elements of this include the provision of updated and consolidated guidance so that all local authorities work to the same template. Amazingly, when we discussed this late last year and I researched the matter, it appears that the authorities did not all work to the same template. Another element of this action is the potential use of census enumerators, and others, to assist local authorities in preparing the next register, as part of an intensive registration campaign. I stated that it was not possible or practical to run the register and the census update together.

Other elements of the action include new arrangements to delete deceased persons from the register and the provision of additional financial resources for local authorities to support intensified action on the register. Funding, as mentioned by Deputy Gilmore, is not an excuse for local authority indolence. There is something perverse about the fact that the voting register is worse than it was when local authorities did not have resources. The last element of the action is an intensive information campaign.

There should be an early start to the register campaign for 2007 and 2008 with the issuing of the relevant form shortly from my Department. I will encourage local authorities to make maximum use of relevant databases available to them to cross-check accuracy and comprehensiveness. I will illustrate this with a reference. We are all aware of cases where new local authority estates have been opened and people do not appear on the register. That cannot be excused and local authorities should not try to do so. It has nothing to do with resources and is caused by indolence. It is inexcusable when local authorities put people on a housing list into an estate without transferring them from the old register to a new one. I will return to this.

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