Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall consider the report of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions entitled, Report on the Design and Layout of Ballot Papers used in the Seanad Referendum, October 2013, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 12 June 2014.

I apologise on behalf of Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Chairman of the committee, for not being present to begin the debate.

This is an interesting topic. People do not take a lot of time to consider the issue of ballot papers and usually only see a ballot paper when it is put in front them when they go to cast their vote at an election or in a referendum. However, a number of complaints were made to the committee about the Seanad referendum. These complaints suggested the ballot papers had caused confusion. One of the principles of democracy is clarity and the notion that people should be given a clear choice. Therefore, the committee undertook to examine the ballot paper used in the referendum. Expert witnesses came before the committee and explained how the ballot paper had been laid out, why the question had been framed in the way it was and offered alternatives that could have been used. This is all laid out in the report.

I recall the debate we had prior to the referendum. When I went to vote, I knew the decision I had taken and how I intended to vote. However, as soon as I looked at the question on the ballot paper, I did a double take and had to ask myself if I was right and if I was voting in support of the Seanad or voting to abolish it. It should have been simple to decide this, but the question had been framed in such a way that one had to ask oneself what one was voting for if one voted "Yes". Voting "Yes" meant one that was voting to abolish the Seanad and was not an affirmation of support for it. The way the question had been framed caused me difficulty, but I was able to overcome that difficulty easily because I was a member of a political party and had a certain view and knew our slogan and choice. However, the question caused confusion for many.

What is even more confusing, not only in the referendum, is that the language used is complicated. It is not plain English but gobbledygook. It is even worse in Irish. The language used is not the type used daily by people. I am a fluent Irish speaker and know how to frame a question, but the question on the referendum papers was framed in such legalistic terms that people could not make head nor tail of it, unless they had a copy of the Constitution or another document in front of them which made it clear that the answer to the question was in the negative rather than the positive.

The report of the committee makes a number of suggestions, not in an argumentative but a helpful way. I hope they will be taken on board by the Minister and an electoral commission that will consider how we frame questions on and the layout of ballot papers. Ballot papers should be laid out clearly and if, as we had previously, we have two or three referendums on the same day, they should be in different colours. People may remember that the headline on the ballot paper in the Seanad referendum was confusing.

The Constitutional Convention also dealt with the issue of the electoral process and recommended having a permanent electoral commission. I hope that when the Government takes the convention's report on board, it will fast track the establishment of an electoral commission, whether it needs to be included in the Constitution or if can be done otherwise. Perhaps this recommendation might be implemented for any referendum we may have next spring. I hope we will have learned the lessons to be learned from the Seanad referendum by the spring. If, for example, we have the promised referendum on marriage equality next year, the proposition to be put must be made very clear in order that the public will be able to make an informed decision. Often, the difficulty and inaccessibility of the language used in the Constitution cause people to shy away from turning out to vote in a referendum. This may also be the reason there were so many spoilt votes previously. The number of spoilt votes in the Seanad referendum is referred to in the report of the committee and perhaps it can be put down to people not understanding the question put or being confused by the language used. However, in every election or referendum a spoilt vote is a way for people to make a political charge or express their dissatisfaction with the political system as a whole.

Another issue is the failure of people to turn out to vote. This is a serious concern in the case of referendums where it is proposed to change the Constitution which would bind the whole country for the future. It is a concern that citizens are not as engaged as they should be.

I encourage the Minister of State to take on board the points made in the report of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions. He should give a commitment that the next referendum process will be accessible. The electoral commissions set up for referendums should ensure the language contained in the documentation is clear and simple. Also, the type of print used should be larger. Recently, the print used has been smaller, clearly because it is costlier to produce more pages. The functional literacy level in the country is higher than in many other European Union countries, but if the print used on information documentation is reduced to 10 point or smaller, people will just throw it in the bin because it is just a block of text. This makes no sense. The documentation used is important. Democracy should never be about cost; democracy costs money. If it means an extra €1 million to produce documentation that is clear and legible, so be it. We must also put more thought into how ballot papers are laid out, their colour, the question put and the language used.

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