Paudge Connolly (Cavan-Monaghan, Independent)

The introduction of this Bill to establish the office of electoral registration commissioner is timely in view of the recent reports of chaos relating to omissions and additions to the existing voters' list. Rumours in the media have indicated a level of 20% inaccuracy which represents approximately 800,000 more people registered than are eligible to vote. Such a number of votes would elect many TDs, considering many Members of this House have been elected on very small margins and one Member has been elected on a margin of one vote. This situation cannot be allowed pertain.

The Minister of State has referred to the work of some local authorities in compiling the register as less than satisfactory and this may be an understatement. There is no incentive for those local authorities to do the job any differently or any better than they are doing and neither are there any penalties. It works on a whim. The Northern Ireland electoral register was referred to which was subject to similar attention prior to a major clean up in recent years, which demonstrates that difficulties also existed north of the Border.

At the 2004 local and European elections, many electors found themselves deleted from the register when they went to vote and these were the interested voters who had turned up to vote. There was no accountability by any person or persons who deleted these names from the register. There are questions to be answered about the mode of operation but safeguards are not in place. Up to now the compilation of the register has been haphazard and patchy with little effort made to ensure the accuracy of lists prior to an election. But for the introduction of the supplement to the electoral register a few years' ago, many persons would be forced to wait several years before being able to exercise their vote in an election.

The current electoral register chaos involving errors and large-scale non-registration or over-registration, increases the risk of election fraud at subsequent elections. Frequently the final seven or eight seats in an election are usually settled by a total margin of a few hundred votes. With the anticipated tight situation in the Dáil, this small margin could decide the make-up of the next Government. Hence, the 800,000 inaccuracies in the current register could, if misappropriated, pervert the true wishes of the electorate. Governments have been toppled on less. Hence, the extreme urgency in correcting the register within the coming year.

A golden opportunity was missed recently by not using the 4,500 census enumerators to distribute electoral registration forms to householders along with the census forms. I cannot understand the reason this opportunity was missed. There is no point in crying over spilled milk at this stage. I fully support the timely proposal by the Labour Party Private Members' Bill to establish the office of the electoral registration commissioner to supervise the work of local authorities in their duty of register compilation.

A system of checks and balances prevailed in the past when the political parties scrutinised everyone entering a polling station. This was at a time, especially in rural Ireland, when everybody knew who was coming into the polling station There was no need to ask for photographic identity. They could identify the person as they walked into the station. Those times are gone and even those of us living in rural areas in many cases no longer know our next door neighbour. When they ticked off the people, they also knew which box they would be ticking as their number one. These boys could do entry polls and tell the type of turnout and the political affiliations that were coming in. Other parties could use the situation to their advantage. They could spot who was not coming to vote and make telephone calls and send cars to ensure those people came to the polling station. The safeguard of the personation agent does not exist any longer and a new system will need to be put in their place.

The proposal to use the PPS number is entirely logical and is the way forward. Anyone using a PPS number twice should be forced to answer for their actions. I spoke to an individual who successfully tested the system during an abortion referendum by going to vote at two polling stations as a dry run for a general election. I met another individual who informed me that in a previous general election he had voted three times. The striking feature of both feats was that neither individual was yet 18 years old. Some people see the opportunity to test the system.

Many people are apathetic about elections and there is public apathy about politics and politicians in general. We should encourage people to vote and in particular encourage students to vote. I regard the notion of polling booths in colleges as being a good idea.

See this speech in context