Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I wish to share time with Deputies Morgan and Cuffe.

I welcome the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006 and its proposals for dealing with the right of prisoners to vote and the provision for postal voting to allow for that. This provision arises from a decision from the European Court of Human Rights in October 2005, whereby a prisoner in the United Kingdom took a case and the court found in his favour. This legislation is being introduced on foot of that decision. I welcome the decision and the right to vote which it gives. I welcome the provision that this voting be allowed by means of postal voting. Details on the implementation of the voting and aspects of security will need to be discussed and teased out on Committee Stage but I support this aspect of the Bill.

The Bill deals with a number of other matters of electoral law. I have drawn the attention of the House to the question of the review of the electoral register. I have discussed it with local authority officials and with the Minister's officials. I refer to the current status of the register, the method of that review and what will be the result of the review. There is a significant difficulty with the current register in the bigger cities but this is not the case in the majority of provincial areas. In my view, the Minister's actions are a threat to democracy. The method being used on the instructions of the Minister will ensure that thousands of voters will be wrongly deleted from the electoral register as a result of those instructions. Local authority officials are concerned and county managers have raised these concerns with the Department and at meetings of the County Managers Association.

I appeal to the Minister to review his instructions as he is using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut. He has turned the review of the register on its head. I was a local authority official. I am aware that until now, the key element in the methods of reviewing the electoral register was that no person was removed from the register unless he or she had died, unless a duplication was clear to the local authority or it was clear to the local authority that the person had moved. The Minister has turned the situation on its head. One must either meet a field officer or send in an application in order to be put on the new register. While I had not heard of the report from South Dublin County Council, referred to by Deputy Gilmore, it is consistent with everything I know and have heard from local authority officials throughout the country in this regard. The instruction sent by the Minister would prevent local authorities from using their own records in putting people on the register of electors. For instance, it would prevent local authorities from using their housing rental records to put people on the register of electors, which is insane.

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