Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

The Bill responds to a judgment of the Supreme Court in the cases of three citizens versus the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Attorney General and others. The cases challenged the assentor provisions requiring that the nomination papers of Dáil candidates who are not candidates on behalf of a political party registered in the register of political parties — in other words, independents — be assented to, by way of signing the nomination paper, by 30 persons, excluding the candidate and any proposer, who are registered as Dáil electors in the constituency concerned. There is an important distinction in this regard. The court upheld the main requirement for obtaining 30 assentors as well as other provisions but it struck down the provision requiring personal attendance by all assentors in a single location in the constituency. It is important that this is corrected in this amending Bill. The court found that the provision is disproportionate to the objective to be achieved, namely, the due authentication of nomination papers, and declared section 46(4B) of the Electoral Act 1992 unconstitutional.

Anyone should have foreseen at the time that it was putting a severe penalty on independents that they were required to have 30 registered members of the electorate with them in signing their nomination paper. We should not make it more difficult for independent candidates who wish to stand for election. The Minister in his contribution stated: "Having an overly large number of candidates could impact on the democratic right of voters to play a meaningful part in the political process". That is his view.

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