John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

We will have the legislation published before the end of this session. I stated that definitively. I have stated, and announced the other evening, as Deputy Hogan will be aware, in response to his own Private Members' Bill, that I will be setting up the electoral commission on a non-statutory basis. The legislation that is required to set it up on a statutory basis is complex and will take a considerable amount of time. However, there are practical difficulties because the franchise section in my Department must concentrate on the considerable amount of work on the mayoralty legislation it is doing in tandem with the Attorney General's office and Parliamentary Counsel, and that is taking a considerable amount of time and effort. Resources cannot be diverted and that is why I stated the other evening that I wanted to set up the electoral commission on a non-statutory basis to begin with.

I also stated, as Deputy Hogan may recall, that when the UCD study was published we asked for observations from various political parties. We received one from the Labour Party but we got no submission from Deputy Hogan's party.

See this speech in context