Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Under long-standing electoral law in this country, the compilation and publication of the register is a matter for the relevant city or county council. It is the duty of local authorities in law to ensure, as far as possible, the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the register. This is not a slight function for the local authorities, but a central function. In carrying out this work, local authorities depend to a significant degree on the co-operation of the general public, who have the right to expect significant support and guidance from local authorities.

Electoral reform has addressed issues related to the register in recent years. Enhanced legislative provisions affecting the register, as sought by many Members of the House, have been introduced such as the creation of and increased access to the supplementary register, which should facilitate adding people to the register, and the computerisation and on-line access for individuals to the register, a matter to which I shall return. Other important areas addressed as part of the electoral reform agenda have included consolidation of electoral law in the 1990s, the introduction of controls on election spending and donations from 1994 onwards, which is not affected by this Bill, and advancing change to the voting system itself from the late 1990s.

The challenge today is to tackle the problems with the register in the ways best suited to the circumstances that exist today. The draft register for 2007-08, on which the next general election will be held, must be published on 1 November 2006, with the final version available shortly afterwards. This gives a very narrow window of opportunity for action by local authorities and makes it impracticable to implement radical alternative legislative arrangements in the time available, even if such were desirable. Results are more likely to be achieved by working within the current organisational framework based on the local authorities as the responsible bodies, and by facilitating the local authorities in doing their work and encouraging them to do their work better than heretofore. No matter how much they might protest otherwise, the Deputies opposite cannot escape that reality.

I have taken a range of actions in the past year to address issues of concern regarding the register. Local authorities were requested by circular from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in July 2005 to take all necessary steps to secure significant improvement in the quality of the register. This action was complemented by the Department's best practice guidance for local authorities to assist them in preparing the register. Amazingly the standard of operation between local authorities had considerable variation. The guidance was sent to local authorities, returning officers and the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government last November for comment prior to finalisation. In view of the importance of the matter, local authorities have been told to implement the guidance immediately. Any local authority not applying the guidance has no excuse but to get on with the job.

Among the specific features of the guidance are a full account of the complex law in this area, a more user friendly format, a timetable of the key activities and milestones in preparing the register along with the relevant legislative references, more detailed guidance on the format and structure of the register with samples of the different page formats, instruction on the definition of ordinary residence in particular for categories such as students, the Traveller community, emigrants, residents with holiday homes etc., which is aimed at avoiding under-registration or multiple registration — a point mentioned by Deputy Burton — emphasis on the prohibition on people being registered as electors at more than one address, with local authorities encouraged to cross-check and co-ordinate with other authorities to ensure electors are not registered more than once, detailed information on the categories of voters eligible to register as postal or special voters and the procedures to be followed in this regard, extensive guidance on operational and organisational matters in compiling information, periodic reviews of overall procedures are called for to ensure that high standards of accuracy and comprehensiveness are achieved, and details of a range of procedures for checking the draft register, including scrutiny by the Garda, cross-checking by field staff, checking omission of names on the previous register, public display of the register, the role of public representatives, and local and national awareness campaigns. As public representatives we all have a responsibility to interest ourselves in this issue. Deputy Burton is right in pointing out that the growing urbanisation makes it more difficult, which simply means we must try harder.

Emphasis on the application of information technology resources to facilitate voters to check on-line whether they are registered correctly, and to enable them to download registration and claim forms from the local authority's website, also forms part of the guidance that has been circulated. It is inexcusable that some local authorities do not have these systems fully operational. Each local authority is required to appoint a designated officer to take personal responsibility for the work involved in the register.

A second volume accompanies the guidance, which includes sample layouts for the register, copies of all the application and claim forms relating to the register and samples of advertising notices and posters used in previous draft register publicity campaigns. I have taken the trouble to outline all this detail, as it is clear from tonight's contributions that some local authorities take this very important democratic function seriously and some do not. It is inexcusable for such a difference to exist.

This guidance, in two extensive documents, is a real and practical contribution to improving the quality of the register. The Department is now finalising the guidance in light of the comments received in the consultation process. In the final version, I will specifically highlight the importance of local authorities crosschecking the register with other databases available to them. Local authorities have many databases, for example their housing database. It is inexcusable for a local authority not to even have its own local authority houses properly registered.

In a previous debate, I mentioned the problem of the registration of deaths. More than 30,000 deaths are recorded in Ireland each year. Under a further recent initiative, local authorities now have regular access to electronic files linked with the General Register Office, which contain information on deaths in their areas. This allows for the efficient and timely deletion of the names of deceased persons from the electoral register. This process replaces cumbersome and time-consuming procedures to secure information on deaths. We all know how difficult it is to co-ordinate death information. Real-time access to the electronic file should allow local authorities to deal with 30,000 registrations per year.

By giving local authorities access on a regular basis to this information in a usable way, this initiative makes a real contribution to improving the accuracy of the electoral register. It will also help to address the difficulties families have when material, sent innocently by political parties through the post, and ultimately a voting card are addressed to somebody who has passed away two or three years previously. The Department has advised local authorities to make full use of these data to ensure the names of deceased persons are deleted from the register in an efficient and timely manner. Deputies could be helpful in checking to see if appropriate changes are made to the register.

Local authorities utilise a number of different approaches in compiling the register, and I will be emphasising the need to ensure adequate staffing resources are devoted to the task. I am urgently considering the available options, including the possibility that local authorities could engage experienced census enumerators to complement their own local sources on the basis of temporary employment. For a range of practical reasons it was not possible to conduct both the census and the electoral register editing in the same way. They are separate and important functions, both of which require separate treatment.

On resources for the register work, in 2006 I have allocated general-purpose grants to local authorities totalling €875 million, an increase of €57 million, or 7%, over the 2005 allocation. I do not accept that lack of funding is an excuse for poor electoral work by local authorities. How can a local authority legitimately claim such an excuse when we know they are being funded at a higher rate than ever before? What logic supports the hypothesis that the more funds local authorities have the less accurate is the register? I am prepared to provide additional funding for local authorities during the year to ensure a comprehensive once-off check is effectively undertaken, which as Deputy Costello said in his contribution, has never previously been done. I will make sure local authorities use this funding in a genuinely additional way. I will not tolerate — as I discovered recently in the non-national roads allocation — managers skimming money from local contributions meaning that as money from central Government is increased the contribution from local government reduces: that will not happen. I will not allow them to reduce their overall funding by diluting their own contributions.

Citizens also have obligations. The law places the obligation on the local authority to compile the register. However, it is also important that individual citizens play their full part in ensuring they are entered correctly on the electoral register. Registration requirements are not onerous. The establishment of a supplementary register gives those who need to register late in the day the opportunity to do so. A national awareness campaign and related local campaigns associated with preparation of the electoral register were undertaken last November in support of the process of registration and encouraging citizens to register. I intend to intensify those campaigns later this year because it is important that we take action in this regard before 1 November next.

The use of the Internet could be a tremendous facility for many people, especially younger people, in this regard. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has asked all local authorities to ensure that registration information, including current registration forms, is prominent on their websites. An on-line register search facility, which is easy to access and use, is available for people to check whether they are on the register. When I checked the local authority websites today to see whether the facility works, I found that it works on some websites but not on others. My officials have ensured that the relevant local authorities have been informed that their systems are down. If Deputies check the websites of their local authorities and find there are problems, I would be grateful to hear from them and to pursue such problems with individual authorities. I have mentioned some practical ways in which we can address this issue, such as making clear to local authorities what is expected of them, giving them detailed guidance, engaging in consultation on that guidance, using other databases, maximising the use of information technology, providing short-term staffing and funding and promoting awareness.

I would like to speak about an issue that was raised by Deputy Costello. The voting process is validated or otherwise on voting day. A number of Deputies have mentioned that the process of challenging voters when they present themselves is less common than it used to be. The Electoral (Amendment) Act 2002 contains more stringent requirements in respect of the use of the electoral register. The Department's guidelines now require at least 25% of voters to be challenged to produce identity documentation. Local authorities and electoral officials are responsible for ensuring that this is done. Polling staff and personating agents are not simply passengers who sit there all day on election day — they have jobs to do too. I have highlighted a set of practical and focused proposals which will help to overcome the difficulties we have in this regard in a timely manner, certainly before 1 November next.

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