Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Bill which proposes to set out in statute that poling should take place between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. As Deputy Doyle has stated, this would effectively take the power out of the hands the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, who changes from time to time the voting hours. The Bill would remove that uncertainty.

It is a sensible proposal whereby people would know that for all elections, polling hours would be between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. This undoubtedly would have an effect on people, would give them greater certainty and would ensure that those who live in commuting counties in particular would have an opportunity to vote. The proposal in this Bill is to have 15 hours of voting, which would undoubtedly have a positive effect.

If one considers the position in other countries around Europe, the actual day of the week on which voting will take place and the hours thereof are established in law. The issue of postal voting also must be considered, as the provisions in Ireland are extremely strict and rigid. However, if one examines how postal voting operates in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, an opportunity should be there for people who, through no fault of their own are unable to be present on the day of an election to vote. Advance voting is another tool used by other countries and may be something the Minister of State could consider.

If one considers the issue of voting and turnout, the 50% participation rate achieved in the most recent local and European elections is not exactly great. It is not a ringing endorsement of people's opinion on politics that they have not engaged fully in the political process. There are problems and difficulties in this respect and this is why the Bill states that at present, Ireland lacks an independent electoral commission. This obviously is a major oversight that must be addressed by the Government. If one seeks to improve democratic participation, a full-time and adequately resourced electoral commission will educate and explain to people how important it is to vote. It will explain that the voters have the ultimate say as to what type of government they want and that they should engage adequately in that process. In his opening remarks, Deputy Doyle mentioned that the turnout in the Meath East by-election, for which the voting hours were reduced, did not even reach 40%, which obviously is quite worrying. Were an electoral commission to be set up in the immediate future, perhaps it should examine the issue of voting over weekends. Were elections to be held over Saturday and Sunday, people would have full opportunity to exercise their vote and this might help matters. However, the proposed hours, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., are very sensible.

An electoral commission obviously would examine the issue of voter registration and the personal public service, PPS, number system appears to be the best way to deal with it. Were the political will there, the Minister would deal with the already-existing privacy concerns regarding the Department of Social Protection in this area, in order that information that already is being captured on one system could be used on the other system. All Members have encountered constituents who have been extremely disappointed by not being able to vote at election time. Such people have approached Members and basically could not understand why they were not on the electoral register. I believe that having one's personal vote linked to a PPS number would help the situation.

If the Government is serious about political reform, it must give consideration to same-day elections for the Dáil and the Seanad to give real legitimacy to the Upper House. The referendum on the Seanad was held recently and the people have decided on that. However, every member of the public quite properly should have a say in the Seanad election, which should be taken a lot more seriously than is the case at present. The Minister could easily initiate an order to the effect that this election take place over the same period as the general election to the Dáil. An electoral commission also should be charged with sending out to voters one item of communication that would outline the ballot papers on which the voters actually will be voting. This perhaps also might include a small biography of each of the candidates because people are very unsure. Recently, during the local and European elections, voters did not know which candidates were taking part in which elections. There is complete duplication and waste of money at present in respect of the litir um thoghchán. While I am glad that only one such letter is going to each household from each candidate, there is a series of communications from each candidate to each household. This is extremely costly and as my colleagues in the Reform Alliance have suggested, there is an opportunity to achieve economies of scale in this regard. This is a matter that must be considered by an electoral commission.

I also wish to raise the practice of postering, which is a huge health and safety issue. As a candidate, one dreads being obliged to organise and supervise this practice. No doubt all Members will have heard stories of near-misses involving people on ladders seeking to erect posters in the most difficult of locations. This is another issue that an electoral commission could examine and perhaps it could put into place what happens in other countries, such as France or Spain, where there are designated billboards on which a poster is put up for each candidate and that, more or less, is it. Such a practice would make more sense and the public probably would accept it because the waste of money that is involved here is very annoying for the public. It is a concern because some people are of the opinion that the State is subsidising and paying for postering for candidates, which is not fully the case.

The largest six political parties received almost €13 million in taxpayers' money last year. Most of the political parties - certainly the two largest - have made a commitment that their political party accounts will be made available online and that the public will be able to view the income, expenditure and balance sheets of each political party. Unfortunately, this has not happened, as the political will is not or has not been there in this case. This is another bone of contention the public has, as does the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO. It appeared recently in the media that despite legislation being enacted to the effect that political parties would publish their audited accounts for 2014, the current Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has refused to sign the guidelines regarding the implementation, as set out by SIPO, regarding the publication of annual accounts by parties.

People seek transparency and accountability and one must ask the question continuously as to why people are not engaging in the political system. They are concerned that there is too much privacy and too much concealing of information as to what is going on within politics in general. There is another issue whereby political parties are accepting moneys for Members who are no longer members of those political parties. Although a series of amendments were put to the Minister in that regard, sadly he did not accept them. At the end of each calendar year, political party funding and leader's allowance funding should be based on the members of each party who are present at the end of each calendar year. That is a fairer way of doing business, rather than the current position.

Overall, I accept and support this sensible Bill introduced by Deputy Doyle. As the Deputy mentions that his proposed legislation contains measures affecting five different Acts, the Bills Office or those involved in drafting might give consideration to creating consolidated legislation in the future regarding the electoral Acts.

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