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

I want to go through a number of questions in a similar vein. First, I want to go back to the question I asked regarding citizenship. I understand a passport is the most obvious example of citizenship but it is not the only one. This is quite an important point. If this Bill goes through, and if somebody is resident in the State before the European elections and they do not have a passport but have an entitlement to Irish citizenship, will they be entitled to vote? For example, what will be the position regarding someone of a Unionist persuasion living in the South who has a British passport and does not want an Irish passport but who has the entitlement to vote? I would like the Minister of State to tease that out in practical terms.

Second, on the dual mandate, if a Member is elected and is unfortunate enough to be the final candidate elected in Dublin or Ireland South, according to the Minister of State, he or she would remain a Member of this House but he or she would also have a subsidiary status as a substitute MEP. Do we know, for example, what the European Parliament and the European Council intend to allow those substitute MEPs to have by way of remuneration, offices, attendance at Parliament and so on? I am not raising a problem with that but the more clarity we have, the better.

With respect to the treatment of the last elected candidates in Dublin and Ireland South, proportional representation is a sophisticated system and voters come to it with a sophisticated understanding of how the preferences operate. If it is a three-seater and the quota is set at X, people have an understanding and think tactically about how they vote in the context of the three people they would most like to be elected. If the quota is different in a four-seater and they can elect four people, voters think tactically about this, sometimes consciously, sometimes less so. I am not questioning the common sense logic of what the Minister of State has done because it seems to be the common sense answer to a problem none of us wants. However, from a legal point of view, for example, can the Minister of State satisfy the House that the Attorney General believes this is the most robust and legally sound way of doing this? Could we have a situation where somebody who gets the fourth seat in Ireland South or Dublin and, for example, is subject to a lengthy period of secondary status because of an extended extension of Article 50, launches a legal challenge? I am just trying to tease out the possibilities. In the event that we have an extension of Article 50 and then a second referendum - and there is increased talk of a second referendum in Britain following the recent announcement by Jeremy Corbyn - could somebody be elected, hold that secondary status for a period, and then be deemed unelected because Britain has voted to return to the EU? Could the State be subject to a legal challenge by that candidate? Have those eventualities been thought through or legally proofed with the Attorney General?

It is for us to be satisfied If the Minister of State is asking us to support this Bill, we have to be fully satisfied that the Government has thought through and worked through all of the different possibilities. I may come back in depending on the answers to those questions.

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