Fiona O'Malley (Dún Laoghaire, Progressive Democrats)

——and fill single occupancy houses so they can vote for an individual. Proof of address is a basic minimum requirement for the important duty and responsibility of voting, which should be treated with the dignity it deserves. I am surprised that Deputy Morgan suggests otherwise.

The Bill only refers to persons imprisoned in the State. This imposes a responsibility on us to get people registered. However, what about Irish citizens held in prisons overseas? Does the Bill put an obligation on the State to ensure that those people are registered? Take, for example, a person who goes on holiday to Thailand and finds himself or herself in prison there. The person is ordinarily resident at his or her address here and would presumably be entitled to vote. However, if the person is incarcerated abroad, is he or she entitled to vote and does this put an onus on the State to ensure the person receives a polling card? How can this be managed?

I listened with interest to Deputy Gilmore's contribution. He was worried about undue influence being imposed on prisoners. It could be said that Members who are keen canvassers bring undue influence to bear on people because we are trying to persuade them to support us. If people were to canvas in a prison, why should they be different and why should it be assumed that they are trying to bring undue influence to bear? That raises the issue of access for canvassing in prisons. Will this be provided? How will it be done? Will it be left to individual candidates to decide what they want to do?

Sections 12 and 13 are somewhat ironic given the political climate over the past two weeks. These sections relate to the electorate for the Seanad. With the exception of the university panel, the Seanad electorate comprises, by and large, public representatives who would like to think of themselves as honourable, upstanding people. This caused me to wonder, given the cloud that has been hanging over the political establishment and political profession over the past two weeks, how to provide for members of the political profession who find themselves incarcerated. Are we getting to a stage where it is far more likely that we will find people from our political class being incarcerated, with access having to be provided for people who are on the electoral register for the Seanad? This is significant.

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