Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome this Bill. It is important legislation. Establishing an electoral commission is long overdue. It is an important measure, and the main thrust of the Bill is one I welcome. As I outlined on Second Stage, I have a slightly different take on this from that of other parties. While I welcome the legislation as very good, it is weak in some places and must be strengthened, especially in areas around voter education. I have tabled amendments on that which we will discuss shortly on Committee Stage. I hope the Government is able to accept some of those amendments.

I agree with the other Deputies about the importance of ensuring there is strong regulation of what happens online on social media during elections. It is an area that is not sufficiently regulated, and the Bill does not do it sufficiently. There has to be very strong transparency regulation and restrictions in that area. It is certainly something on which I am happy to work with other Deputies and other parties.

Regarding the process in respect of the later amendments that have been introduced by the Government, I have no issue with being flexible and efficient in the legislative process but we must have a certain amount of time built in to allow for sufficient scrutiny. To explain, we were given the briefing note from the Department on these new amendments when it was emailed to us at 12.05 p.m. today, approximately three and a half hours before this debate. We have other things to do so it is not as if we can simply drop everything else and go straight to the briefing note and analyse it. A group of these amendments are about more transparency in the electoral process, but we need more transparency in the legislative process, which means that if a briefing note is circulated about new amendments, and it a good idea to have a briefing note circulated, and it is received three and a half hours in advance, after only receiving the briefing yesterday, there is insufficient time to engage and to scrutinise properly.

I raise those points not to be awkward but to be helpful. We want to be able to scrutinise the legislation and the amendments as much as possible and we need an adequate amount of time to do so. I hope that can be taken on board.

I very much welcome the amendments on same-day island voting and I recognise the work done by Deputy Ó Cuív on that. These are welcome measures. They are long overdue and very important. People on the islands have made the case strongly that they should not be treated any differently from anyone else, that there are not the same barriers to transport of ballot boxes as there might have been in the past and that, especially in the modern era, there can be very consequential developments in elections right up towards the end in respect of the national debate. They feel they should not be put at any disadvantage when they cast their votes. It is very important that the Government has taken that on board.

As for the restrictions in not allowing donations through cryptocurrencies, given that that is not properly regulated and there is a lack of traceability, I support those measures. It may be that at some point in the future, matters may be different and this may need to be changed but that makes sense at the moment.

I very much welcome another long-overdue measure, that political donations accounts can be opened up in credit unions. It is a small thing but it has been a source of a lot of frustration to people that they cannot go to credit unions to open such accounts. This measure is important symbolically in recognising the very important role of credit unions, and there is no good reason it should not have been facilitated in the first place.

I also welcome the amendments on transparency regarding properties and ownership in respect of political parties. I note the Government is not supporting my Bill on a land price register, which would give greater transparency on ownership of land, including development land, but at least we will have that transparency in respect of political parties, if no one else, in terms of land interests. If the Government votes down my land price register Bill, I will be back as quick as I possibly can with a revised Bill on that issue.

Finally, people can look at this Bill and wonder whether these issues matter and whether they are technical. They absolutely matter to the heart of our democracy. Money can have an absolutely corrosive effect on democracy. We have seen that, very sadly, with the recent events in Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas, where children and their teachers were murdered in a society where there is an absolute lack of effective gun control as a direct result of the corrosive effect that money has in the US political system and that the US gun lobby has in lobbying the US political system. That is at its most extreme the highly corrosive effect money can have on the political system. We have seen the corrosive effect of money on politics in Ireland, especially its effect on our planning system, and we have in turn seen some detrimental effects of that. We see in our planning system to this day developments happening without sufficient infrastructure, proper childcare places or schools going in as a direct result of changes made in our planning system due to lobbying and due to a lack of transparency in respect of the influence of lobbyists on our planning system. These things have an effect on people's lives. It is important to do as much as we can to make our system as transparent as possible. That is why our measures have to go beyond the measures in this Bill in respect of the electoral system, welcome though they are. They are one part of the equation and, on their own, not sufficient.

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