Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

People who have been on an electoral register for many years do not give it a second thought. It is not something that occupies their minds. They have always turned up to vote and they will now be removed from the register because the method that is being used to correct the electoral register involves the sending out of letters to people and calling to people's houses and if they do not respond to those approaches from local authority officials they will be removed from the register. A paragraph from a report on this matter which was produced recently by South Dublin County Council reads: "Based on recent indicators projected from the work undertaken so far by the council, thousands of South Dublin residents who would otherwise be eligible to vote will not be placed on the register of electors for 2007-2008 because they have not furnished up-to-date information regarding persons eligible to vote to South Dublin County Council." I believe that is repeated elsewhere throughout the country. When the new electoral register is produced and people who have always voted turn up to vote at the next general election, they will find they are not on the register. When they ask why they are not on the register they will be told they are not on the register because they did not return the form to the county council.

The Minister needs to act to ensure people who have every entitlement to vote are not removed from the register. The business of saying that officials called to the door and nobody was in, that two letters were sent to which there was no reply, following which the person was taken off the register, needs to be stopped. That is not the way to correct the electoral register. During the course of the past year we proposed many ways in which the electoral register could be amended and brought up to date, but the Government chose not to take up any of those suggestions. The method now being used will deprive citizens who have always participated in the electoral process of the right to vote. If local authorities do that, they will be in breach of their duties because it is the duty of the registration authorities to ensure the electoral register is accurate. The issue must be addressed urgently.

Another issue which arose during the course of the summer is the result of the preliminary census. The preliminary census figures published show that some constituencies are out of line with the limits set down in the Constitution. The constituency of Dublin-West, for example, will have a ratio of TD per population which exceeds the upper limit of 1:30,000 provided for and quite explicit in the Constitution. Also, a number of constituencies will vary from the norm in terms of the ratio of TD to population, in some cases by up to 10% or 12%. We will have a situation where a constituency with roughly the same population as an adjoining constituency will have three seats while the adjoining constituency has four seats.

The courts have previously insisted there must be equality of representation and that the principle of equality must be protected. Based on the preliminary census figure, the existing constituency boundaries, which were based on the previous census, are vulnerable to legal challenge. The Minister has stated publicly that the Government has decided not to do anything about this and that it will not do a new revision of the constituencies nor bring a new constituency boundary Bill before the House. He has said this conclusion is based on the advice he has got from the Attorney General.

I have asked the Minister publicly, and asked in the House yesterday through the Taoiseach, for the advice from the Attorney General to be published. To date, the Minister's response has been that the Government does not normally publish advice it receives from the Attorney General. I accept that is the case when dealing with routine Government business, but this is an area which is not about routine business. It is about the electoral process and whether the general election we will have in the next six months or so will be vulnerable to legal challenge.

The issue is urgent. If the issue is allowed to drift and the Minister hides behind the advice of the Attorney General, which nobody else has seen, we are in danger of a challenge being taken. We do not know what the courts will do in that situation or what they will decide. I remind the House that on the last occasion a challenge was taken to our electoral Acts — the Kelly case taken at the time of the 2002 general election — the judgment was handed down the day before polling day. Imagine the mess we will be in if the courts hand down a judgment stating the formation of constituencies on which the general election is based is unconstitutional. The issue needs to be addressed. The minimum I ask the Minister is to publish the advice he has received from the Attorney General. This is an issue in which we all have an interest and the advice should be available to the House.

The other development which occurred with regard to electoral matters during the summer was the publication of the second report of the Commission on Electronic Voting on the secrecy, accuracy and testing of the chosen electronic voting system. It was published on 4 July, just as the House was going into recess for the summer. I raised this matter this morning with the Minister for Finance who was taking the second phase of the Order of Business and asked him to make time available for a debate in the House on the report. The report of the Commission on Electronic Voting was made to the House, not to Government. Therefore it should be debated and discussed in the House. I repeat my call for it to be debated here.

It is interesting that we are having today's debate on the very day a report is being published in the Netherlands by a group of citizens with concerns about the electronic voting system in use there, essentially the same system and hardware and provided by the same company as that advocated for this country. The Dutch have found it is possible to hack into the voting machines and demonstrated that it was possible to play a game of chess on them. We were told repeatedly by the former Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputies Cullen and Noel Dempsey, and by the Taoiseach that the machines were secure and safe.

I have been going back over the history of the electronic voting debacle. The Government spent over €50 million purchasing an electronic voting system which will not now be used and we spend €750,000 per year to keep the machines in storage. It is clear the equipment will never be used in an Irish election, not least because the public has no confidence in it and the commission, which was established by the House, has roundly and conclusively condemned it to the dustbin.

The Labour Party raised concerns about electronic voting in 2003 and in November 2003 we published a document entitled Electronic Voting in Ireland — a Threat to Democracy? In that document we set out a number of concerns about the electronic voting system the Government intended to use. We pointed out there were problems relating to the physical and operational security of the system and that has been confirmed by the report of the Commission on Electronic Voting. We pointed out that no end-to-end testing had been carried out on the system and the same conclusion is made in the commission report. We pointed out that the quality of the software being used was inadequate and this too has been confirmed in the report. We pointed out the source code had not been made available and the commission has drawn attention to this also. We drew attention to the lack of independent verification of the system being proposed and this has been confirmed by the report. We pointed out the dangers of using CDs and floppy disks to transfer data from the voting machines to the counting system and this too has been criticised by the Commission on Electronic Voting. We also drew attention to the issue of voter confidence, which has been commented on by the Commission on Electronic Voting.

I ask the House to bear in mind that this report was published by the Labour Party in November 2003, following which the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government examined the electronic voting system and had expert witnesses appear before it as well as representatives of the Department and of the companies supplying both the hardware and the software. Notwithstanding all the criticisms which were made of this system, the Government and the then Minister, Deputy Cullen, proceeded to buy it anyway. When the Labour Party published its report and when the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government examined the electronic voting system, the contracts had not been signed and the payments had not been made. It was after the problem had been flagged and after it was known that the Opposition was unhappy with the electronic voting system, after the expert opinion had been given and communicated, that the Minister, Deputy Cullen, went ahead with it anyway.

In the past week, this House has heard much about the issue of accountability and it is not yet finished with accountability for the waste of taxpayers' money on a system that will not be used in circumstances where the Minister concerned was repeatedly told that this was a mistake and where the flaws in the system which have now been confirmed by the Commission on Electronic Voting were already pointed out to him.

The commission has done an excellent job and has produced two reports. The second report, which is its major opus, has now been presented and is before the House.. The House will need to discuss what is to be done arising from that report. It must discuss what is to be done with the voting machines. It must discuss what is the future of electronic voting, if any, in this State. It must discuss the question of holding to account those Ministers who wasted such a huge amount of Irish taxpayers' money. When will the Government provide time for such a discussion?

We are approaching a general election. On other occasions in advance of general and local elections the Government has suddenly pulled electoral legislation from the bottom drawer to be presented and rushed through the House. I recall legislation being brought forward in the run-in to the 2002 general election which increased quite significantly the spending limits to be allowed in the course of that election. I want a clear statement from the Minister. Is any further electoral legislation contemplated by the Government between now and the general election? If it is contemplated, I want to be told about it now, not when it is being published and presented in an attempt to rush it through the House.

I have raised the following issue with the Minister by way of a parliamentary question. What action does the Minister propose to take about the spending limits? Is it intended to increase the spending limits for the forthcoming general election? It is in the interests of the entire political system that this information be known. It is unacceptable that the existing Government would have a game plan with regard to spending on the general election which is not available to other political parties and to the general public. I await a clear statement from the Minister.

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