John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

The rules and procedures concerning elections are a key component of our democratic system of government and the electoral law is an important part of the responsibilities of my Department. As a measure of the legislative activity this involves, the House may wish to note that five Electoral Bills have been brought before this House by my Department and enacted in the past four years.

The Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2008 has completed Committee Stage and I am considering issues arising from that prior to the taking of the Remaining Stages in the House. The Bill implements the recommendations in the report of the Constituency Commission published in October 2007. It amends the law relating to the constituency revision process and it provides for alternative procedures for the nomination of non-party candidates at European and local elections. I look forward to the early enactment of the Bill in view of the important issues it addresses.

I intend to bring forward proposals in the near future for legislative change to allow for the introduction of spending limits at local elections. It is my intention to have the limits in place for the local elections to be held in 2009. The programme for Government contains a commitment to examine spending limits at local elections as part of the Green Paper on local government. Submissions made in the course of preparing the Green Paper, published in April 2008, were generally supportive of some kind of expenditure limit.

On 8 January 2008, I announced that I had established two committees to review local electoral areas. When publishing the reports on 17 June 2008, I announced that, consistent with long-established practice, I was accepting the recommendations contained in them. I am in the process of making the necessary statutory instruments to give effect to the recommendations. I have made 26 of the required 37 orders and the remainder will be finalised as soon as possible. The local electoral areas established by these orders will apply at the 2009 local elections.

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