Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government will support the Bill. I understand the reasons Deputy Ó Cuív has introduced it and I am aware that he spends much time on islands off the west coast. I spend as much time as I can on islands off the south coast. The purpose of the legislation is to recognise that time has moved on in terms of access to islands. While acknowledging that people living on islands should have the same rights as people living on the mainland, living on an island is not the same as living on the mainland. Sometimes issues arise, for example, with bad weather causing ferries to be delayed or cancelled. This time last year, for example, ferries in Galway Bay were cancelled for two days in early December because of inclement weather. Access is sometimes an issue.

With this Bill, Deputy Ó Cuív is, I believe, asking whether it is still appropriate that legislation should provide for up to five days of early voting prior to elections. I will discuss the issue of transporting ballot boxes to count stations in a moment. The core issue, however, is that the role of social media and the media in general in elections means that a great deal happens in the final 24 or 48 hours of election campaigns. It is no longer appropriate, therefore, that the 2,583 people currently listed on the register of voters for seven islands off County Cork, five islands off County Galway, three islands off County Mayo and five islands off County Donegal should be in a different category in terms of the information available to them when voting in a general or presidential election.

This decision will have consequences and we must be aware that it involves risk factors. From that perspective, the Government reserves the right to introduce some amendments to the Bill. The legislation does not cover European and local elections. If this change is being made, it should apply to all elections.

Issues also arise from the requirement that ballot boxes be at count stations by 9 a.m. on the morning after an election. If the priority is to ensure that people on islands can vote on polling day and have the same information as everybody else before casting their vote, we must also recognise that there may be consequences to having an election on a day in December, January or February. For example, severe storms could come in along the west coast on election day. We do not want to create unnecessary danger in terms of access to the island to ensure compliance with the law.

The Bill does not propose to change section 86 of the Electoral Act 1992, which allows presiding officers on islands to open the poll late if there is a good reason for doing so. Provided the poll has been opened for at least four hours, the presiding officer may make a decision to close the poll early to get a ballot box back to the mainland. Despite all the modern connectivity that is available on islands, whether helicopter or ferry access, we must recognise that the weather can sometimes be so ferocious as to make it difficult to access the mainland quickly and easily.

If the core issue is ensuring that people living on islands can vote on the same day as everybody else, I am with the Deputy on that. However, we need to have some flexibility and recognition regarding circumstances in which a severe storm on polling day might cause difficulties transporting ballot papers to the count. While these will be exceptional circumstances, legislation must offer the flexibility necessary to deal with such circumstances.

Last February, polling in the general election took place before polling day on the mainland in the case of the islands off counties Donegal, Mayo and Galway. Polling on the islands off County Cork was held on the same day. They are clearly ahead of the pack. This pattern was also followed for the 2015 referendums and 2014 local and European elections. The position before that was somewhat different.

Having been on Oileán Chléire, Sherkin Island and Bear Island on many occasions, I believe the populations living on these islands will recognise that the Bill is a move in the right direction. It is an important point of principle for them that they are being treated the same as everybody else. While the State must put in place arrangements to ensure that this legislation works, it should not beyond our capacity to do so.

In the context of islands generally, no political party has a monopoly of care for our islands. The previous Government specifically sought, for the first time under the Common Agricultural Policy, to help island communities by encouraging them to farm, keep livestock and so on. That process has worked well. Likewise, we introduced some new initiatives under the Common Fisheries Policy to encourage a new type of inshore artisan fishery and to promote and support many of the smaller operators. We invested significant resources in helping them to be more effective in that context. Priority must continue to be given to people who are living in very different and sometimes challenging conditions on islands. The core issue is that we need to keep people on the islands. If people leave island communities, the houses there will be turned into summer holiday homes and residences, which will mean people will no longer live on the islands for 12 months of the year. If we move away from that, it will be difficult to recreate it.

We have valuable communities, great characters and valuable Gaeltacht areas. Island communities are an important part of rural, maritime and coastal life in Ireland, as my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Kyne, with responsibility for supporting and protecting these communities, knows only too well.

The Government will support this legislation, although we will need to tease out and have a practical discussion on some of the consequences of what is proposed in it. The core issue is that we are responding to the case being made that people living on islands should vote on the same day as everybody else and, when they vote, should have available to them all the information available to everybody else. As far as I am concerned, regardless of whether the number of people involved is 2,500 or 10,500, the principle is the same. We will need to put in place arrangements, perhaps, by way of amendments, to ensure there is legal flexibility to deal with the move to managing a vote fairly for everybody and to streamline the count process. For example, we will need to ensure that a presidential election count is not delayed because of delays in getting ballot boxes to count stations from an offshore island.

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for this legislation and I look forward to teasing out the issues on Committee Stage. I presume the Bill will move now to the pre-legislative scrutiny process but I suspect we can move it through the process relatively quickly to ensure we have legislation in place by the time the next election takes place.

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