Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire, Progressive Democrats)

The most important duty of a citizen to his or her country is to participate in the determination of how and by whom the State is governed. Wars have been fought about the right to vote. It is an enormous regret to me that we take this fundamental right for granted nowadays. It is equally disturbing that we seem to have such a cavalier attitude to the process of preparing for elections. We have been aware of the alarming level of inaccuracies in the electoral register since June 2005, when The Sunday Tribune started to investigate the state of the register. While opinion may differ about the level of inaccuracy, it is more or less agreed that there are at least 400,000 invalid registrations, which represents a huge potential for electoral fraud. I agree with Deputy Fleming that it is nothing short of a disgrace that the register is in such bad order. It is imperative that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government should act quickly to ensure confidence in this country's electoral system is not further eroded.

By presenting this Bill to the House, Deputy Gilmore has highlighted a significant threat to our democracy. He is entitled to ask what the Government intends to do about that threat. It is disappointing that an initiative was not immediately put in place when this information became available last June, as there was still enough time before the next general election to address these obvious problems. I asked my party colleagues who sit at the Cabinet table to press upon the Government the need to act. I understand a sub-committee was formed as a result. I do not know exactly what was achieved by the sub-committee. I applaud Deputy Gilmore for his initiative, which demonstrates his obvious commitment to establishing an accurate register. I have some reservations about the Bill that has been presented to the House, however. Given that the Bill was first published on 20 October 2005, it is a pity the Labour Party chose not to use its Private Members' time to introduce it before now. It can hardly be blamed for inaction. As such a short period of time remains before the next general election, there is simply not enough time to put in place a new way of compiling the electoral register. The law states that the draft register must be published and prepared by 1 November next. There is not enough time to pass this Bill, establish the office of an electoral register commissioner and prepare a register by November. I share Deputy Gilmore's concern about the state of the register. We need a workable solution that can be put in place before the next election. We need short-term and long-term solutions, but I am not convinced this Bill provides for either.

I would like to dwell on the aspects of the Bill with which I agree. I am in favour of using the personal public service number system in the compilation of the electoral register. That position was unanimously endorsed by the Progressive Democrats Party at its conference last weekend. The use of PPS numbers, which are unique identifiers, would cut out duplication in the system. When I checked this morning, I found that I am still on the register in two places in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, even though I have been in communication with the local authority and have been living at my current address for the last three and a half years. That highlights the incompetence — if that is not too strong a word — of the local authority's efforts to compile an accurate register. The possibility of duplication is further compounded — it is doubled in effect — by the fact that information can be inputted to the register in Irish and English. As a PPS number is a unique identifier, just one individual can be identified by it. Therefore, the use of such numbers constitutes an obvious solution to the problem of duplication.

I concur with the Minister's comment last night that the indolence of the local authorities characterises their attitude to the compilation of the electoral register. Local authorities are not given any incentive to prioritise this work. They are indifferent to the inaccuracy of what they produce. That there is no uniformity in what is produced is also worrying. Each local authority operates in isolation, without the ability to cross-reference its lists with those of other local authority areas. The current outdated system of compiling the register belongs to an Ireland of the past, in which people knew each other. As that is no longer the case, it is time for the introduction of a new system.

It is time to take responsibility for the compilation of the register from local authorities. A single new system needs to be designed to manage the task. An independent electoral commission needs to be established to run elections. It would be more appropriate to devolve the task of compiling the register to such a body. I cannot support this Bill for that reason. I do not believe the establishment of the office of commissioner of the electoral register, separate from an electoral commission, would be wise. We need to arrive at a long-term solution by consensus without rushing the process. A stopgap measure, which is what this Bill is, would not be satisfactory as we would go down a cul-de-sac. Deputy Gilmore has indicated that the establishment of an independent electoral commission is the ultimate goal. In the short term, we need to deliver a workable solution for the next general election. I was glad to hear the Minister intends to ask census enumerators to gather this information in the field. It is the Minister's duty to spend money to correct the register. It is probably the single most important task to be undertaken by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in the rest of his time in office. He must take action that is stronger than the issuing of a directive. It does not please me to say that previous directives have been ignored. I appreciate that Deputy Gilmore is keen to solve this problem, but I do not think his Bill represents the solution.

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