David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for giving me the opportunity to speak on this Bill which, again, is an important one. It is short, but there are some very important initiatives included in it.

The major change is that the number of MEPs is being reduced from 12 to 11, which means that the constituencies will have to be reviewed. At present, they are quite large. MEPs in the north-west constituency must take into account people living in Kilrush and Moville. It is an enormous area. The areas from Dingle to Tramore in the south and Wexford to Dundalk in the east are also very large. Each constituency, including Dublin, has three seats. If one is to move to have 11 MEPs, there needs to be a major change and my suspicion is that we will have even larger constituencies. Obviously, we do not know yet and the commission will be independent. As the Minister likes to be radical, will he consider having single seat constituencies or a national list system? I do not know if it is physically possible for people to cover that kind of territory and engage with constituents. I, therefore, challenge the Minister to possibly produce a paper on the pros and cons of and hold a seminar on having single seat constituencies or a national list system in order to get away from these massive constituencies and expecting people to travel to Brussels or Strasbourg and then come back and service a constituency of that size. In practice, one will find that MEPs are located in physically different areas; therefore, in practice, there are smaller boundaries that MEPs will serve, but we need to look at this issue because it would make it far more manageable.

I will digress for a few moments. The Minister knows my views on national elections and Dáil constituencies, for which we should be talking about single seat constituencies. I was perturbed recently at the Convention on the Constitution when it spoke about having seven or eight seat constituencies. That would lead to massive competition at local level and one would end up with Deputies spending less time here dealing with national and international issues as they wjould need to spend more time in their constituencies dealing with local issues, which are within the remit of councillors. We need to rethink on this issue in a significant way.

I welcome the changes to the supplements to the postal and special voters lists, which are important and timely. They give people more time to get on the lists, but we need more advertising of them. We need to let the public know in a timely fashion that they are available. Perhaps we should look how they are structured, as they are quite complicated. There are a range of sections, qualifications and rules. The system needs to be simplified in order that people can avail of the postal and special voters lists in an easier way, but this is a welcome first step that is very important.

At the start of this process, the register of electors will be changed because of the new authorities and there will be new registers. When this is happening nationally, I suggest we consider mandating undertakers to let local authorities know when someone dies in order that his or her name can be taken off the register? It would be a simple thing to do. Surely the undertakers could send a note to the local authority telling it that someone has regrettably passed away. It would be a very simple and easy thing to do. I mention this in the context of the changes to the register of electors. Again, it is an interesting idea.

Mention is made in the Bill of town councils and changes and requirements relating to development plans. The town councils will go, a matter on which the Minister and I have had conversations. We need something to replace town councils with in urban areas in the context of development plans and planning. I note that around the country there has been growth in the number of community councils and know that the Minister is interested in this idea. There are community councils all over the country and they work very well and are democratic. However, they will not be recognised unless they are democratically elected. They do a lot of work such as looking after social services, old and young people and the environment. One could say they do more than town councils which have a narrow statutory remit. I suggest that if we are looking at development plans, as mentioned in the Bill, we need to start encouraging the development of community councils in urban areas which will no longer be served by a discrete, focused town council. This should possibly be looked at and encouraged.

Another issue which arises under the Bill is the disclosure of donations. Again, it is welcome that political parties must come forward in the same way as candidates and it is quite important that they do so.

Mention is made in the Bill of candidates who come from other jurisdictions and how they can validated to ascertain they do not have a criminal record and are eligible to stand for election. This leads to a wider debate about how we can encourage new immigrants to get involved in the political process. If people who come from other jurisdictions stand for election, this might help, but we need to reach out to people who are now citizens of Ireland to encourage them to get involved in the political process by standing for election, including in European elections, either for political parties or as Independents. We had different integration policies and sections at Government level. Now that they have more or less been stood down, it is important that we focus on this issue. It is quite hard to get involved in the political process in Ireland. Even joining political parties can sometimes be daunting for people who do not know what is involved in the process. Perhaps we need to start looking at that issue and talking about democracy and how people can become involved. Many of the people concerned come from other jurisdictions that would, to say the least, have had challenges related to democracy and many of them are quite interested in getting involved. The political system needs to focus on this issue to try to involve them.

I have a point to make on the register of electors, voting and the special voters list. It is slightly off topic, but perhaps the Ceann Comhairle might indulge me when I talk about polling station personnel. I suggest to the Minister that he bring about a situation where individuals could apply for these positions rather than having people in them who are well off and have huge pensions, while persons in receipt of jobseeker's allowance cannot get a look in. If these positions were advertised on an annual basis, people would be able to apply for them and a panel established. This would certainly be of help. It would also be of help if people in receipt of social welfare payments received some dispensation for the period of time they were doing this work in order that it would not impact adversely on their jobseeker's allowance or eligibility for other schemes.

I do not have much more to say. This is important legislation. I know we spoke about having an electoral commission. Perhaps the Minister might give us his views on when that might occur.

The idea of a standing electoral commission to look after elections, referendums and so on has been suggested so at what stage is that?

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