Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I am glad the Taoiseach has given us the opportunity to have this debate — by holding back and not calling the election at least until this debate was over. I do not believe the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey is convinced. However, I hope we may be able to convince the Taoiseach as a result of the debate that the election should be held on a weekend. I regret the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, is leaving the Chamber because I wanted to highlight some statistics on the electoral register for the Galway West constituency. The September 2006 census recorded 52,000 people over the age of 18 years in the constituency. The electoral register, published in February, contained only 40,000 people. This means there are 12,000 voters in Galway West who are not registered. The majority are students attending one of the several third level institutions in Galway. From knocking on doors for the past week, I noted most of these students are registered in their home constituencies where they wish to vote. With study and examinations, they will not be able to go home to vote if the election is held on a Thursday. By having the election on a weekday, the Taoiseach simply does not want these young people to have the opportunity to vote because they are independent-minded and most likely will not vote for the Government.

The aforementioned figure represents a sizeable proportion of the electorate. Reflecting the national average turnout, 60% of those voters could easily represent an electoral quota. It is interfering with the democratic process to deny them their vote. Many seats will be won by 100 votes or less, sometimes even by six votes. These 12,000 voters do not want to cast their votes for me or Deputy Fahey but for the representatives they know in their constituencies. I cannot understand why the Taoiseach is hinting the election will be held on a Thursday. The word has probably come back to him of the Fine Gael Party's strength of support among young people. The Fine Gael branch of the NUI Galway has more than 200 young members. Young people want to be involved in the democratic process but they are being denied the opportunity to vote.

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