Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

A person would want to be very unpopular to spend that kind of money and not get elected. However, some people have spent large amounts and not been elected. In general, the electorate has good sense and usually elects people who represent or reflect its views. Deputy Fleming said earlier that if people of ill repute put themselves forward and people want to vote for them, that is, perhaps, a reflection of an element of society. I would suggest they should not be elected, but if they are the people's choice, that is what democracy is about.

There are issues concerning local government in which the Minister should be involved. I do not usually believe in making a personal issue of something, because politics has enough policy targets for us to take aim at without personalising an issue. However, the notion that the Minister is purer than the rest of us has been put across. The Minister is almost fit to explode with joy because he is a Minister, but any legislation he introduces is joyless. The Minister speaks about "My Department". It is not his Department, but the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It is an instrument of the State and will outlive him, me and the Ceann Comhairle. A person should not take possession of something in that manner. The Department is not his but belongs to the State.

I agree with Deputy Higgins that there are issues with which the Minister must deal. Better local government gave us more officials, a layer of bureaucracy we do not need and costs a fortune, but it did not increase productivity nor increase transparency and openness. Reform is needed within local government to make it freer to deliver the service it should deliver to citizens and make it more open and transparent and more prepared to take on new ideas. These are the areas the Minister should be considering.

We had a debate on the issue of the register of electors all last year and the one before, but the register is no better now than then. Surely the Minister can find some mechanism that can identify electors uniquely so that even if they move house they will not appear twice on the voters' register. We should be possible to do this with the technology that is available. This is something we should take it upon ourselves to achieve.

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