Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister said, the Bill contains three minor provisions, namely, an amendment to the Electoral Act to provide for the newly named Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, to be included in the register of nominating bodies for Seanad panel member elections; an amendment allowing candidates for the Seanad university panel the right to a free post for each household in their constituencies; and, perhaps most important, an amendment allowing newly qualified Irish citizens the right to apply for entry in the supplement to the register of electors. This is a necessary change for people who become citizens after the register of electors has closed.

We support the Bill in principle, although it contains very little as it stands. We support and welcome the amendments the Minister will introduce which will change the format of election ballot papers and eliminate possible confusion over where voters should place their preferences. However, if the Bill is the sum total of the ambition of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and the Government for electoral and Seanad reform, it is a very sad indictment of the Government's inaction during recent years. The Bill should have represented an opportunity to reform the archaic and duplicated electoral register before the coming election. It should also have been an opportunity to reform the administration of elections by taking steps to establish the independent electoral commission that has been promised for four and a half years.

Once again, the Minister and Government are taking the path of least resistance and declining to introduce any meaningful reform, despite the Government’s promise of a democratic revolution since its inception. The Bill also, unfortunately, represents another lost opportunity to introduce Seanad reform which would not have involved constitutional change. The Seanad needs to be a more representative body and should have a role as a check on Government power to scrutinise national and EU legislation. The Manning report, as well as Fianna Fáil proposals, offered an immediate legislative route to help to achieve those goals, and could have been implemented by the Minister over the coming weeks. However, it is clear that the Government will, once again, let political reform slip off its agenda.

On the need to reform the supplementary register, I had hoped the amendment in the Bill would have raised an important point about how unnecessarily complicated the voter registration system is. Being included in the supplementary register is a complicated and time consuming process for anyone, not least someone who is relatively new to the country. We must question whether it has to be this complicated. While voter and electoral register fraud must be guarded against, the current system for registering voters, especially the supplementary and change of address register, is cumbersome, inefficient and out of date. People applying to the supplementary register due to a change in address, for example, often remain on the register in the previous constituency in which they resided, resulting in much duplication on the register. There is no reason an online and postal system could not be introduced for the supplementary register, as in another countries. It would be more efficient and accessible for most people as opposed to the current process by which a citizen must visit a library to get a form, visit a Garda station to have it stamped and then send it to his or her local authority franchise office.

There is a dire need to reform the administration of elections. Although there is almost universal consensus on this need, no action on reforming the administration of elections has been taken, despite repeated promises by the Minister and his colleagues. Although the Minister has continually promised reform, the single reform proposed to election administration has been the change the format of the ballot paper which, although welcome, is only a drop in the ocean of the reform required. The Minister has questions to answer about why he and his officials have done nothing to forward the reform of electoral administration, despite four and a half years of promises.

A new, independent electoral commission is required to take responsibility for the administration of elections and amalgamate responsibilities for the management of our electoral process, which is dispersed across several bodies, including the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, 31 local authorities and a host of different agencies such as the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, the register of parties, the Constituency Commission, the Referendum Commission and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The franchise section of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has, unfortunately, shown itself to be unwilling to address failures in electoral administration and elections. For example, when asked by the Constitutional Convention what measures the Department has taken to clean up the electoral register, the franchise section responded that “the electoral register is not at present the subject of detailed scrutiny in the Department”. The Minister has continually pushed away action on the issue, arguing that more reports and investigations are required rather than taking proactive measures.

Again, the franchise section of the Department has been remarkably disengaged, admitting in public that increasing the electoral turnout is not a priority for the Department. In response to concerns submitted to the Department by the Constitutional Convention over the levels of voter turnout at elections, the Department responded that “the question of measures to improve voter turnout is not at present the subject of detailed scrutiny in the Department”. There has been a complete dereliction of duty by the Minister and his Department regarding responsibility for increasing turnout at elections. Many sections of the Government and Government Members agree that an electoral commission is needed to clean up the register and make voter registration easier. An electoral commission should take proactive measures to improve voter turnout and amalgamate oversight powers currently dispersed across SIPO and local authorities.

The Bill introduces an amendment allowing candidates for the Seanad university panel the right to a free post for each household in their constituencies. It is, unfortunately, a sad indictment that this measure represents the sum total of the Minister’s ambitions for Seanad reform.

The Taoiseach believed this matter was of such pivotal importance to the nation that he put the survival and the future of the Seanad before the people in a referendum. His response to the result of that referendum was to ensure any proposals for the reform of the Seanad are now at the back of his mind and that of the Government. He said at the time "sometimes in politics you get a wallop". It is obvious that the wallop in this case has put him into submission in terms of any proposals that might emanate from the Government on Seanad reform. It is a complete dereliction of responsibility. The sum total of the Government's response to the need for Seanad reform is this amending legislation, which merely gives certain candidates in Seanad elections the right to free post.

Many of the recommendations contained in the Manning report on the reform of the Seanad, which I mentioned earlier, could be put before the Dáil by the Government for immediate implementation. These proposals would empower the Seanad by giving all citizens a vote and broadening representation across specific minority groups. A fundamental overhaul of the political system is needed to tackle the big problems in Irish politics. That requires more than political stunts and power grabs. The referendum on the abolition of the Seanad was nothing more than a political stunt and an attempt to grab power. When that failed and the people rejected the referendum, no effort was made to take on board the wishes and feelings of the public. It was quite obvious to everybody concerned and all who took an interest in the referendum that the intention of the people was for the Seanad to be reformed. The voters were doing more than merely rejecting the Taoiseach's stunt. They wanted reform, but the Taoiseach has disregarded the public's views on the matter.

It might have been appropriate for the Government, as it leaves office, to take this opportunity to start the sort of reform it promised when it assumed office. Unfortunately, that is not happening in this Bill. While we might recommend the provisions of this Bill, unfortunately there is very little contained in it. We had hoped that more of an effort would have been made in any Bill brought before the House to address the real reform that is required from an electoral amendment perspective. I see this as nothing more than a ticking exercise on the part of the Government. I repeat that I want to register my dissatisfaction and disappointment, and that of my party, with the Government's failure to take another opportunity to introduce real and meaningful electoral reform. Perhaps, despite its murmurings and its commitments to the public prior to entering office, that was never its intention. It might be the case that having entered office, and having failed to accept the will of the electorate as expressed in the Seanad referendum, the Government has decided to rub the people's noses in it again by introducing a Bill that does not provide for the sort of reform that is urgently required to address this situation.

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