Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

The supplementary register is one of those cases where people see the difficulties with the introduction of new facilities rather than the improvements that are made. The supplementary register is a relatively recent change. It was introduced for the reasons Deputy Morgan outlined, namely, that Ireland is a rapidly changing society and the addition of people to the electoral register must be facilitated. The supplementary register facilitated two things. The first was to allow people who had changed address to be added, while the other was to allow people who had reached their 18th year to be added.

While the supplementary register was introduced to facilitate people, it has tight controls. It is not difficult to imagine that the supplementary register could be grossly abused and it is therefore necessary to have checks. Deputy Murphy said that some people would not wish to go to a Garda station to be added to the register. As I understand it, there is a provision where an individual can be added to the register in a council office. Prudence would suggest there must be some controls on the supplementary register. People cannot be added to it willy nilly. One could not tolerate having 1,000 people added to the register a couple of days before polling. Logic suggests that there must be some controls on it.

It has been argued that the supplementary register is less flexible than the other arrangement. Equally, the argument was made last night that it is more difficult to get a parking disc in a residential area than it is to get on the voting register. There must be controls otherwise there may be widespread abuse.

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