Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Practical difficulties arise. We clearly could not have a separate register for each different election. There is no need to know a voter's address for a referendum, for example, but as the electoral register is difficult enough to construct once, to construct four or five different electoral registers would be extremely difficult.

The idea of automatic registration or, for example, a system for tying it in to PPS numbers, or using PPS numbers for verification, are all issues that belong to a wider debate on the issue of how one constructs the register. If, for example, one was to take on board the point I have just made, namely, that I would favour the idea of a rolling register with resources provided to make sure that rolling register is kept up-to-date and accurate, one could have a debate in that context. However, one could not introduce the arrangement suggested in the amendment without creating chaos.

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