Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

If it is helpful, I will make a brief comment. Earlier this year Members asked that we take a serious look, for the first time in 30 years, at the state of the register because all of us knew that it was packed with people who did not live where they were supposed to live and people who were dead or did not exist in the first place. The Government took up the suggestion made in the House to bring in the census enumerators and that job was done. As I knew at the time, that meant all the dead wood on the register, including those who were long dead, would be removed.

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