Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am delighted to lend my support to this Bill. Unless I misinterpret the Minister, Deputy Roche, I believe that over the years he has, deep down, wanted to enhance the whole system of democracy. Whatever his faults, failure in this regard is not one of them. I cannot understand why a Minister in his position would not want to give to the electorate the best possible chance to vote at the next election, not that he will have the final say on the matter but bearing in mind that he carries the candle tonight. I am sorry I am witnessing the return of the old days of Fianna Fáil in that I am beginning to get a sniff of gerrymandering from this issue. For the past four or five years, youth parliaments were addressed by Ministers and youth fora met all over the country. They were deemed to be the greatest things on earth, and so they were because they brought people into mainstream politics and afforded them an opportunity to say what they thought about democracy. Rather than long-standing elected representatives prescribing what would be good for young people, the latter did so themselves. All over the country, at various fora and under various headline organisations, they decided they wanted to vote, given that circumstances were reasonable. It is reasonable to believe a great number of these people will vote for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and everybody else.

At rallies throughout the years and since the first day I entered this House, I have said that, whatever else one does, one should vote. I have said this in the knowledge that one has a very mixed audience when speaking in public, as the Minister well knows. To have a say in what happens, one should vote. People who do not vote do not have the same say in what is happening as those who do. Now that there are so many parties, Independent Members and types of politicians, all with different objectives and manifestos, few voters will be able to say there is not a single person in Ireland for whom they could vote. As we all know, there is plenty of competition in all constituencies.

I take it the Minister understands fully that the 1999 and 2004 European elections were held on the dates mentioned. Given the difference in voter turnout in 1999 and 2004, we can take it that Friday voting works. One would not need to be a mathematician to understand this. Let us consider the city of Galway. The Minister may shake his head, but he should realise we are addressing the young people of Ireland tonight. I do not know how many of them will hear this debate but they will find out about it and will be very interested in the Minister's reply. What will the 20,000 or 25,000 students in the National University of Ireland, Galway, and the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, who live in but one small city, think of a Government that asks them to leave their colleges on a Thursday to travel home to vote, be it in Donegal or the midlands, and then return immediately to attend college on Friday? They may have to get a lift if they do not own a car. Their parents are working and not in a position to collect them. What I have said is happening in Galway city is replicated all over the country. Why would any Government want to impose such hardship, including financial hardship, on voters?

Everybody says a great many young people do not want to vote but they should ask themselves how one can convince a young person in Galway city, Castlebar, Limerick, Cork or elsewhere that the Government wants to ensure it is easy as possible for them to vote. There are many people who, for a variety or reasons, will not or cannot vote but the young people who want to do so must be facilitated. Very few parents would be in a position to drive from Sligo or Letterkenny to Galway on a Thursday to collect their sons or daughters so they could vote and then bring them back so they could attend college the following morning. If there were ever a way to ensure they could not vote, it would be to ensure that we have Thursday voting. This is basically what we are talking about.

The Government has done all sorts of research, at which I admit it is good. It must have been demonstrated recently that if young people get to the polling stations, they might not do Fianna Fáil a great deal of good. One could never take Fianna Fáil to be foolish where electioneering is concerned as its every step over the years has been taken to remain in the Government benches. Anything that had to be done electorally was and is being done and that is why I say there is gerrymandering. It stinks and many young people are fed up to the teeth with it.

We are speaking principally about young people but there are other categories of voter to be considered. Many young married couples are registered to vote down the country but, because the national spatial strategy was not implemented and because we have the worst form of regional development ever known, they must work in Dublin out of economic necessity. Imagine them rushing home to try to get to the polling booths to vote before 9 p.m., 10 p.m. or 11 p.m., or whenever they are to close in the knowledge that they will have to be up at 6 a.m. the next morning to commute back to Dublin. Research has shown that many people in this tranche, as opposed to young people, are saying that because their houses cost so much, interest rates have increased so much and child care costs are out of this world, and because they see no hope for alleviation under the current Government, they will deal with it in the way they know best, that is, by voting. They will do so with the pencil rather than the e-voting machine.

Whatever way the Government clothes the issue of electronic voting, it can take it that when people go to vote, they will have a mental picture of a Government that misappropriated and misspent €50 million on the daftest project ever thought of. They will all remember this because it will surface on election day. I do not know how all Fianna Fáil's quantitative researchers and others will overcome this mental picture but I hope everyone has it in mind when voting and I will do my level best to implant it.

It is very seldom that Fianna Fáil makes a mistake of this magnitude and if its back was not to the wall, it would not have done so. I hope everybody left without a vote if the Taoiseach opts for a Thursday election will take into account what the Minister, Deputy Roche, has to say on behalf of the Government.

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