Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 125, it be an instruction to the committee to which the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006 may be recommitted in respect of certain amendments, that it has power to make provision in the Bill in relation to the Second Schedule to the Electoral Act 1992 in relation to the preparation of the register of electors.

The motion before the House concerns an amendment to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2006. The amendment is not directly related to the issue of votes for prisoners, which is the main purpose of the Bill, but is a further measure to help ensure that this year's electoral registration process is as effective and comprehensive as possible. The need for revision of the electoral register has been discussed in this country for some years. Local authorities have legal responsibility for the electoral register and it has been clear for some time that the registration process did not receive the attention, priority and resources that it required.

All political parties have been long aware that the electoral register has not been as accurate as it should be and over the years efforts have been directed towards facilitating people getting on the register. However, less attention has been paid to removing people from the register who should not be on it. Until this year we did not have a system in place for removing from the register the names of people who had passed away.

The problems with this approach have been compounded by the enormous changes in Irish society. These include increased population mobility and unprecedented new development — we expect 90,000 new homes to be completed this year. There has also been a huge increase in the number of non-nationals living in Ireland — almost 300,000 people from the ten new EU member states came to work in Ireland since May 2004. We all know the dynamics of population change in the country.

A number of commentators estimated that the register could have contained an excess of names ranging from 300,000 to 800,000 or more. When we went to the polls in 2002 the number on the electoral register exceeded the number of adults in the population by about 300,000. While there may be debate about the quantum, there was no debate about the need for serious revision.

These problems have not arisen overnight and are not unique to Ireland. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance stated:

Voter registration is the most complex and controversial and often the least successful part of electoral administration. By its nature it involves collecting in a standardised format specific information from a vast number of voters and then arranging and distributing these data in a form that can be used at election time.

Against this background a package of measures to assist local authorities in their work on preparing the 2007-08 register were put in place this year. Additional funds were provided, a common set of guidelines agreed and a publicity campaign undertaken. I discovered, at the beginning of this process, that local authorities did not have a common approach to compiling the register. This has resulted in the most serious and sustained effort ever to improve the register, a registration campaign unprecedented in its extent and its intensity.

More than 1,500 fieldworkers carried out nationwide house to house calls, tens of thousands of households were visited more than once and where these visits did not establish the composition of the households, councils were instructed not to delete people without first sending a written notice warning of the dangers of being omitted from the register. As already mentioned the Government invested significant additional financial resources in the process, specifically €6 million to supplement local authority resources and another €1 million in a national media campaign. Public awareness of the electoral registration process has never been higher. Councils are now automatically notified of deaths in their areas, which did not previously happen and my Department instructed every council to set up a checking system on its website.

The results that emerged from this campaign are remarkable. Figures supplied by local authorities show that some 380,000 names have been added to the register since February. These are people who were not registered at their current address but have now been picked up by the recent campaign. The registration process will ensure that thousands of people who would not otherwise have been able to vote will be enfranchised at the next election.

In addition, there have been over 500,000 corrections and deletions since February. Included in this figure are people who have died, those who have moved house, those who were on the register more than once, and those with whom the councils were unable to establish contact. The occupants of this latter category, estimated at 170,000, or just over 5% of the population, have all been written to and councils are reporting a huge response to these notifications.

I must emphasise that persons who are still not on the register continue to have a number of options. This amendment gives people a further two weeks, until 9 December, to submit a claim to get on the register which means that people will have had from 1 November to 9 December to check and to get on the draft register. After this point local authorities will have until 2 January to make corrections to the register. County registrars will have until 12 January to make changes to the register and interested parties have a legal right to be heard in this regard. People may get on the supplement to the register up to 15 days before polling day. Nobody is being disenfranchised and every voter who wishes to get on the register between now and the 15th day before the general election may do so with relative ease.

There was no alternative to this approach in the short term. It was suggested, in good faith, that using the PPS number system or the census could have created an easier path but there are practical problems. The PPS system holds over 5 million numbers and does not necessarily capture voter residence. The census is a mandatory requirement on all citizens and it would not have been possible to run two collection processes simultaneously. It is subject to a seal of confidentiality between the State and the citizen which cannot casually be legislated away after the event. While superficially attractive, these suggestions would not have worked, at least not in the short term.

I believe we need to look at reform of the whole electoral process, not just discrete elements such as registration, voting systems and electoral expenditure issues. Most democratic states have an independent electoral commission to oversee these issues and this is a subject to which I would like to return with the joint committee in the near future. I am pleased that there appears to be a growing consensus on this across the House.

The amendment in respect of which the Bill is being recommitted today will ensure that maximum use will be made of the time remaining, before the current register expires, to further improve the draft register. The relevant registration dates affected by the amendment are set out in primary legislation and, in line with recent case law, any change therein requires change in primary legislation. It is not possible to change primary legislation by ministerial order, even in a small matter like adjusting a date.

The current law allows claims for correction to the draft register up to 25 November. Following consideration of these claims, county registrars must return the endorsed list of claims to local authorities by 23 December. A final register must be published by 1 February by the councils. The effect of the amendment will be to allow more time for councils to complete their work and additional time for members of the public to submit claims for corrections to the draft register. I recently discussed the issue of a time extension with the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government. I stated I would consider sympathetically any requests from local authorities for an extension to the time limits. I had not received any such requests at the time but on 21 November I received requests from three of the 34 registration authorities, two of which were notices of motion from elected members of the councils in question, while the other was from the management of the council in question. Rather than confine the extension to the three councils concerned, I decided to provide an extension of time to all councils to complete their work on the register. This is in line with the suggestion made at the joint committee. In these circumstances, I also decided to give an additional fortnight to members of the public for submitting corrections to their council.

A number of dates in the Electoral Act 1992 must be changed to give effect to the new extended timeframes. First, the deadline for any person wishing to make a claim for a correction to the draft register has been extended from 25 November to 9 December. Second, local authorities must prepare and forward the list of claims to county registrars by 12 December as opposed to 30 November. Third, county registrars must return an endorsed list of claims to local authorities by 12 January.

As a result, local authorities will have until 2 January to carry out their own amendments to the draft register. The final date for the publication of the register for 2007-08 will remain as 1 February and will come into force on 15 February as normal. To do otherwise would create a lacuna in which the only register available would be that compiled in autumn 2005. In law, the current register ceases to have effect on 14 February next. No one is arguing that the life of that register, which was compiled in the autumn of 2005, should be extended. Such a suggestion would be illogical given the results of this year's campaign and the large number of errors on the register. I have proposed the maximum possible extension within the limits of the life of the current register.

The registration process this year has had more resources and more attention than at any time in living memory. More resources and personnel have been dedicated to the task than ever before. The object is to ensure that those who are entitled to vote are registered and no one is disenfranchised by the process. The amendment will provide further assurance in this regard and give councils extra time to ensure they do a comprehensive job. It is my pleasure to move the motion.

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