Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Bill is designed to allow the electoral register to be used for the purposes of selecting the members of the citizens' assembly.

I will only speak about the technical aspects of the Bill and not the broader issue of the assembly itself as that was well debated earlier. Sinn Féin will oppose the Bill because this is the wrong data source and the wrong organisation to oversee the selection process. The difficulty with using the electoral register is that 5% of the adult population of the State is not on it. Those people are automatically excluded. This is approximately 200,000 people. Generally, they are likely to be young people, those on low incomes, people with literacy difficulties, Travellers and those who do not have citizenship or residency rights. All of those people have a right to be involved in any constituent or citizens' assembly, irrespective of whether individual parties agree or disagree with such an assembly or the issues it will consider. It is a mistake to use a data source that excludes those people from the outset. There is also a concern that we are only talking about those who have citizenship rights, the right to vote in referenda and people over 18 years of age. There is clearly an argument that other groups should be included when deliberating on these important issues. Therefore, using the census data held by the CSO rather than the electoral register would be a much more inclusive approach.

To pick up on a point made by Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, Sinn Féin does not believe it is appropriate to use a private polling company. While the legislation does not specify a private polling company and refers to "persons", it clearly does not prohibit one. Irrespective of the subject matter or the purpose of the assembly, if there is to be full public trust and confidence in the selection process, the CSO would be a much better placed organisation to provide it. We would have much preferred to see legislation that used the census data and tasked the CSO with the responsibility to provide the members of the forum. On those bases, we are not willing to support the Bill. There are other categorise of people who are excluded. These include the diaspora, citizens from the North and people in direct provision and the asylum process. All of those people have a right to be involved in the debates of the assembly. On those bases also, we will oppose the legislation.

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