Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I was just about to finish, a Cheann Comhairle. In fact, I manfully delayed matters because I knew Deputy Gilmore wanted to talk on the issue covered by his amendment. I support the spirit of his amendment and I am trying to strengthen it somewhat. As regards amendment No. 28a, the nub of the issue is that we are allowing additional time for councils to complete their work on the electoral register for 2007-08. We are also allowing members of the public more time to return their registration forms to city councils. The effect will be that councils will have until 2 January to complete their work and the public will have an extension until 9 December to return forms that were sent to them in the earlier part of November. The amendment provides a new timetable and, as I have already explained to the House, the new timetable arises from the reality that there is a flexible arrangement within the existing legislation where all the dates are set out.

On amendment No. 30a, I am happy to accept the underlying proposals that local authorities should be able publicly to make available lists of persons listed on the current register but who are not listed on the draft register. These are the lists of deletions. Many local authorities had already done that but, as Deputy Gilmore has pointed out, a number of Labour and Sinn Féin Members were refused the deletion list. That was an inappropriate decision and to put the matter beyond any doubt I accept the spirit of the Labour Party amendment. I have, however, had the amendment examined by the Parliamentary Counsel, as I promised I would do. My amendment seeks to retain much of the proposed language, while improving the text by, first, keeping more closely to the legal language already included in the Second Schedule of the 1992 Act and, second, by not confining publication of the list to before the closing date for submission times, as regards claims for correction. In other words, I am not confining it to 25 November. It is prudent that the list should be available. Effectively, therefore, I am opening the matter up beyond what the Deputy sought to do. I believe it was imprudent of councils not to make the list available. That list would have been available under the Freedom of Information Act anyhow and it should have been done speedily by councils. I am pleased to accept the spirit of Deputy Gilmore's amendment but I have inserted some additional text. I commend both amendments to the House.

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