Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill because I am not happy with it. It arises from the November 2006 Supreme Court judgment which struck down the necessity for an Independent candidate to present 30 assentors to his or her nomination at a central location. That system replaced the deposit system which was a deliberate attempt by the Government to make it more difficult for Independent candidates to register and be nominated. While the Supreme Court judgment struck down the deposit system, it has effectively been reintroduced through this Bill. To what extent will that provision stand the legal test of time?

Presented with a problem, most Independent candidates used the assent process as a positive way through which to develop their campaigns and support bases and to put it up to the political parties, but anyone included in the register of electors should be entitled to present himself or herself to the electorate at election time. There is no legal or practical obstacle to this being the case and we should introduce such legislation today. We are discussing democracy and the right of the people to vote for whomsoever they please and support anyone's policies. The Minister stated such a position would create a large number of candidates and make a mockery of democracy, but the reality would be far from it. The electorate should make the decision, not the Minister, the Department or the Government of the day.

On making a mockery of democracy, what has been the Government's record in recent years? There was the issue of electronic voting, the debacle that was the register of electors, a deliberate redrawing of the boundaries of many constituencies as three-seaters in a bid to make it more difficult for Independents to be elected and a situation where the word "Independent" would not be allowed to be used on ballot papers. What is paying €60 million of taxpayer's money for e-voting machines which will never be used and are lying idle in warehouses across the country, and the cost of their maintenance and storage if not a mockery of democracy?

On a number of occasions I have raised the issue of the register and the manner in which the Minister and his Department disenfranchised thousands of people, as we will discover on the day of the forthcoming election. People whose names have been on the register for years will approach Deputies because they are no longer on it. The Minister has turned everything upside-down. Until this year, someone's name remained on the register unless his or her local authority knew that he or she was dead or had moved to another constituency.

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