Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy is from Galway, he may remember that his current leader, when talking to students in Galway, extolled the virtues not just of voting electronically but of voting on the Internet. People are entitled to change their minds but they are not entitled to play the hypocrite.

While much of the debate was not on the Bill, a couple of points on the Bill were raised. Deputy McCormack raised a serious point with regard to the centre and the purpose of the penalties. The penalty will apply when a centre has given a false statement, and will apply under the existing law on false statements. A situation could arise where somebody could malignly attempt to disenfranchise an Independent candidate by giving assents in a number of different areas, thereby conspiring to defeat the democratic purpose. The point is not to punish the Independent candidate, who would be innocent in this matter, but to deal with the centre which behaves malignly.

Several points were raised with regard to the deposit, which I believe is reasonable at €500. A number of non-party Deputies referred to the use of the word "Independent". Deputy James Breen, who was almost on the point of taking off with indignation, argued that his constitutional rights were being infringed. I am not sure about Deputy Breen's capacity to make judgments on constitutional rights but I am convinced the Supreme Court has some competence in this area. The Supreme Court has been specific and clear in this regard. I refer Deputy Breen and anyone else who has doubts on this matter to pages 34 and 35 of the Supreme Court's adjudication. It states at page 34:

Candidates for registered political parties will invariably have the name of their party after their names. The description for other candidates as "non-party" candidates is a correct one and could not be said to be misleading.

The adjudication continues on page 35:

The ballot paper is not intended to be one which goes beyond enabling the candidates to be identified by voters and contain a political message. Every candidate, including independent or non-party candidates have the freedom during the course of the election campaign to convey to the electorate who they are and what they stand for. There is no reason to conclude that the description "non-party" on the ballot paper is misleading. Neither is there any evidence suggesting that this might be so.

That is the view of the Supreme Court. If we are democrats, we accept the Constitution and that is the view to which we sign up. We cannot have a situation where we accept the adjudications of the court when they suit us and do not accept them when they do not.

Deputy Finian McGrath, at length and in a dispassionate way, gave what he regarded as an objective assessment of the role of Independents. Anybody who is elected is entitled to the respect of the House. The fact that a person has one appellation rather than another does not suggest that person is superior to every other Member of the House. The view of the law and, thankfully, that of the people who drafted the Constitution is that all who walk into this House are equal. Deputy Durkan made the point that, in terms of remuneration, Independent Members do rather better than those with party affiliations.

In response to Deputies Finian McGrath and James Breen and others in that part of the House, while I respect them fully, I notice that all those who talked about non-delivery called on the Government to deliver. It is a marvellous position to be in to carry the Independent banner and then call on the Government to do the thing they told the electorate they would do.

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