Niall Collins (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)

The spending limits provided for in this Bill represent a welcome innovation. I have been involved in elections at local and national levels and have found it surprising that no limit was imposed on spending on local elections despite the potential impact on major local governance decisions. It is farcical that regulations are applied in general elections but do not in respect of local elections. I am happy with the limits that have been imposed in the legislation and expect they will provide a level playing field for all who contest local elections.

Deputy Tom Hayes made an interesting point regarding the amount of money that can be spent on elections for South Tipperary County Council under the new limits. The €1 million to which he referred should, however, be considered in the context of the number of candidates contesting an election. We clearly cannot limit the number of candidates in an election.

The Litter Pollution Act 1997 should be amended to place an onus on local authorities to deal with the issue of posters in a more practical manner. Subsequent to the last general election, my posters and those of other candidates began to reappear in significant numbers in various parts of the constituency. I wrote to the local authority to explain that I had removed all my posters and, in fairness to the authority, no subsequent issues arose. We removed posters as soon as we became aware of them. However, I was litter fined in the aftermath of the Lisbon treaty referendum campaign because a poster was found hanging on a pole even though I had passed the pole in the morning of the day on which the offence allegedly took place and did not see the offending poster. Clearly, somebody had maliciously hung my poster on the pole later in the day and the litter warden happened to be in the area.

I took issue with the local authority but was told that I could pay the fine or go to court and take my chances. I paid the fine for the sake of a quiet life but I pointed out to the authority that I would have removed the poster had I received a telephone call. Indeed, I removed the poster within half an hour of being made aware of it. We should amend the Act in this regard because there is no benefit to us in leaving posters in place beyond the prescribed period. Local authorities should formally write to the person responsible for the posters before issuing fines. Some process should be put in place in this regard because certain people like to make our lives difficult in the aftermath of elections and referenda.

I concur with previous speakers on the need to radically review the register of electors so as to align it with PPSNs. Deputies receive electronic copies of the register of electors so that we can access the names of constituents who contact us in order to store their details on a client database. Only 65% of those who contacted me over the past 18 months are listed on the register of electors. We need to introduce radical reforms in that regard.

We should decide either to use or lose voting machines because it does not make sense to keep them in storage. The wrong decision was made in respect of not using them. They were used in pilot exercises in a number of constituencies but issues arose in terms of how results were released and the information flow from them. Why was a practical exercise not conducted subsequent to the election whereby ballot papers from a particular electoral area would be put through the voting machines to test their accuracy?

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