Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

Electronic voting machines with electronic counts would remove the drama associated with the traditional hand count. It would be the same for posters. They add flourish and colour to campaigns and in the four-week run into polling day can switch people on to the campaign. Often people are detached from political life, so it is great people can tune into election campaigns. The Irish interest in election campaigns is different to that in most modern democracies, which we should cherish.

In the past we have seen the colour in posters when it was not just about a candidate's mugshot and a party tagline. I am reading a book which recounts some of the brilliant election campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1931 general election, Cumann na nGaedhael used dramatic themes and slogans in its election posters such as the shadow of the gunman and keeping the red out of the national flag. If we could inject a little more creativity into our election postering it would be a welcome departure from the standard developed over the past several years. We have all become a little too slick. We should not become obsessed with curtailing the poster element of campaigns. A balance must be struck in this regard and the Bill is trying to go in that direction.

The transparency element of elections must be also enhanced. I hope the Minister will adopt an approach to give the Standards in Public Office Commission more clout. Today, the Fine Gael Party launched a series of proposals for Oireachtas reform. One proposal concerns investigations of practices and procedures in the course of an election campaign. Such investigations can only be started on the basis of a complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission; it cannot initiate any investigations of its own volition. If the Minister is serious about electoral reform, he should examine this.

A more meaningful body is needed to examine electoral responsibilities. The Standards in Public Office Commission could be given a greater role and scope in, for example, monitoring the conduct of elections and voter registration. There are still large discrepancies with the electoral register. Two years ago, there was an overhaul in most local authorities of the register but it has failed. Up to 80% of the names in apartment blocks on the register in my constituency are incorrect. There is also a problem with the duplication of the database system for Deputies and Senators. We need to be careful in this regard with the use of a unique identifier such as a PPS number.

If the Green Party and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government are serious about preventing people from buying elections, he should look closer to home with the abuse of power with ministerial constituency offices. Ministers can have up to nine people working for them, churning out material for their constituencies and overcompensating for the Minister's attendance to Cabinet duties. It is unjust and, I would argue, an unconstitutional advantage that has been conferred on Ministers. If the Minister is as serious about electoral reform as he claims to be, then he needs to take this issue by the scruff of the neck. He must make the commitment that all Ministers will reduce their constituency workers to the maximum of two so that the playing pitch is levelled out.

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