Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The Minister is correct because that type of person will take action to put the situation right, but the great majority of those who have been inadvertently deleted, as the Minister put it, will not put it right and there will be a great deal of anger on polling day when they find that they have been removed from the register.

Third World countries invite the United Nations to verify that their voting systems are fair, but we are boasting about how wealthy our nation is when we cannot compile the basic electoral register accurately. Some banks, finance houses and credit companies have records of the citizenry that are more accurate than the electoral register.

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