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

I thank the Minister for his comments and for the significant work his officials did with our committee to facilitate pre-legislative scrutiny. Sometimes, our debates around this Department can be fractious, but there was broad consensus throughout the committee's proceedings, not only on supporting the Bill, but on trying to work on a collegial basis to ensure it was as strong as possible for reasons I will explain in a moment.

I welcome the publication and introduction of the final legislation last week and its Second Stage debate now. I look forward to us progressing it to Committee Stage. I see no reason that the Bill could not be passed and enacted by the summer recess. That would be a positive step and would come around a little faster than many of us believed it might. I thank the Minister and his officials for that.

This is important legislation. Across the House, the calls for the modernisation of our electoral system and the Register of Electors, the creation of an independent electoral commission, better regulation of online advertising and the use of online platforms during elections, and combining what is still a fragmented electoral system architecture into a much more efficient and streamlined body are positive developments. On this basis, Sinn Féin is happy to support the legislation.

It is not a cliché to say this is once-in-a-generation legislation and that it will set the framework for local, general and presidential elections and referendums into the future. Therefore, it is important we get it right. The comments I am going to make will be made out of a genuine desire for the Minister and his officials to consider some improvements to the Bill that we could discuss between now and Final Stage.

There was a desire throughout the pre-legislative scrutiny discussions, including among many of the expert witnesses whom we had attend, not only to see the electoral commission established, but also a framework created along which its powers, functions and role could evolve in an organic way. There is a lack of clarity in the Bill about how that will be possible. We are keen to have the matter discussed further in the concluding remarks of the Minister or one of his ministerial colleagues and when we reach Committee Stage. If we set the commission up right and put it in train, it could grow into a substantive body, not unlike some of the more significant electoral commissions in New Zealand and other jurisdictions. I would strongly recommend this approach to the Minister.

I am still unconvinced that the chair needs to be a former judge. That is too restrictive. Some consideration should be given to the key criteria that someone needs. They may include legal expertise, but not necessarily judicial expertise. There is a question over the rationale behind this approach as opposed to an approach that would be just a little broader to ensure that we got the best person to lead this new organisation.

Much of what the Bill is doing will come down to funding. While the legislation precedes the funding, the Minister might give some indication in his concluding remarks or on Committee Stage as to what his plans and hopes for the future are. Some interesting comparisons were made between the amounts of money being spent in election years and non-election years in New Zealand. I am mentioning that example because it is a small country with a small commission and with a good track record. The gaps in funding between what the Minister and his colleagues were considering during pre-legislative scrutiny stage and what was seen in that jurisdiction were significant.

One of our main debates was on the need to ensure that those who were most excluded from our electoral process, whether by virtue of social class, ethnicity, language, disability or other factors, were brought in from the beginning - not as peripheral considerations, but mainstreamed throughout. The committee's pre-legislative scrutiny report made specific recommendations in this respect. I cannot see them reflected explicitly in the Bill, though. It could be that we have missed something, but it is an issue to which we will return. I wished to bring it to the Minister's attention.

Our party has a long-standing commitment to lowering the voting age to 16 years. It has been tried in other jurisdictions. It would not only be positive for the political system, but also encourage young people to get active and get voting as early as possible. This could have been a matter for the commission's consideration at a later stage. It is a missed opportunity and I urge the Minister to consider it.

There is considerable disquiet among NGOs involved in policy advocacy, which are still concerned that the definition of "political purposes" might be too restrictive. We should have very robust rules – I am with the Minister and the legislation in this regard – to ensure there are no external influences on our electoral processes, including referendums, but we must also ensure that, in making that protection robust, we do not limit the ability of NGOs and others to be involved in legitimate policy advocacy work, which is essential to the functioning of our democracy. I know the Minister agrees with that. Some of the language around "political purposes" could be too restrictive. We would like to work with the Minister and his officials to tease this out and see if some further tweaks – they are more likely to come from the Government side on Report Stage – are in order.

I have made the case that our postal and proxy voting system is too restrictive. There are people who are denied the right to vote despite the fact that they are unable to do so or are not present in the jurisdiction for legitimate reasons. Other jurisdictions have good, robust systems for postal and proxy voting. We could improve our system. I wish to flag this issue.

Notwithstanding the criticisms from some social media platforms that presented to the committee, we must have the most robust controls and protections, not only where online advertising is concerned, but for any use of online platforms, so as to ensure that the kinds of negative activity we have seen in other jurisdictions – thankfully, there is no evidence that they exist in this jurisdiction – never come to play a part in our elections. While I welcome the moves in the Bill, and I recognise that it can only deal with the election period and the wider regulation of social media is work for another Minister and another committee, its provisions in this respect could be strengthened. I hope the Minister will be open to discussing this matter with us on Committee Stage.

Regarding pre-legislative scrutiny, I am conscious that the Minister's officials are already overloaded with a great deal of work, but it would be useful if they were able to give the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage a short memo setting out how the departmental officials believe that the spirit, if not the actual letter of the pre-legislative scrutiny recommendations, is reflected in the Bill. Sometimes, the Minister works something in that he believes reflects such recommendations but we do not necessarily see it. Rather than wasting his time with amendments that are unnecessary or have already been dealt with in the Bill, it would be useful if we had access to that information.

I thank the Minister for his letter, which he issued to members of the committee on 1 April. He referred to it at the end of his comments. Some of the amendments will be technical, so I urge the Minister to make his officials available for a private briefing, for example, with the committee's members. We will not have put any of them through pre-legislative scrutiny and are not asking to do so.

Rather than giving us less than a week's notice when we get the white list of amendments, however, we should have a briefing. The Minister will remember, when he was on this side of the Chamber, his predecessor often brought in officials to meet with me and him, even when the amendments were not finally crafted. It would be very useful to give us a sense of some of that. We would support the Minister in that.

I again acknowledge this is a very significant piece of legislative work by officials. There has been very significant public consultation. A very significant piece of work has also been done by colleagues on the Oireachtas committee. I commend all of that. All I urge the Minister to do is to take the same collegiate approach on Committee Stage, and on Report and Final Stages, as we have taken to date. We could see some improvements to the Bill by doing so. We are supporting it anyway. We want to see this over the line but let us make sure that when it is passed, it is the strongest, most robust and most effective piece of electoral reform that will stand not only to the Minister's reputation and legacy but to that of this House. That would be a very good day's work indeed. I look forward to working with the Minister and his officials on Committee Stage.

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