Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this day and it is something for which I have been advocating for a long time, as the Minister and his officials are aware. I have one issue however. It is five months since the Dáil passed the Electoral Reform Act 2022 and we only now have appointed the four ordinary members. As the Minister told the Dáil on 13 July that it was intended that the Electoral Commission be established as a matter of priority following the enactment of the reform Bill, why has there been a five month delay? It is a considerable period. Have all the issues that were concerning us in relation to the EU directive on e-commerce and political advertising been dealt with? Could the Minister inform the House on that? Was that part of the reason for the delay? If not, that is fine but the Minister should just let us know the reason for the delay and what the status is.

I have no issue with the four people who have been appointed. I know some of them and others I do not but they seem to be from a pretty wide range of backgrounds. I know Professor Fennell has some serious knowledge and I know the two former politicians both come with a lot of experience. I know Mr. John Curran quite well and always found him to be very fair and independent and a very decent human being. Ms Quinn will bring a different type of experience from a corporate point of view to the commission.

I want to say a few things relating to it. The Minister might also inform the House as regards the work that has been ongoing because up to October when we went forward on this, basically we and the Minister and the Department were in open breach of the legal requirement to establish a constituency commission. If there had to be an election following a census where we had a preliminary census, there are legal precedents for people taking cases in this area. Consequently, we were in a no-man's land where there was a legal requirement to establish a constituency commission under Part II of the Electoral Act 1997 once the preliminary results of the census were published. It was only repealed with the statutory instrument the Minister signed on 14 October. There was a risk period and luckily we got through it but it did create a risk, as the Minister will acknowledge.

As a unit has been set up within the Department to act as a secretariat to this commission, the Minister might inform the House what work has been ongoing in this regard. As somebody who established the constituency commission in a previous life, everyone knows that the rumour mill gets going in relation to how this works. I never believe any of those rumours. However we are in a situation where we will have nine to ten more Deputies and the process by which the next Dáil constituency boundaries will be set up will be something that will be very quick, that is, within three months of the final census coming out to mirror what was there previously. As my understanding is the Minister expects that to be early spring, the likelihood is we should have the new boundaries around June. There will be great fun for everyone around the Houses that week anyway. Can the Minister inform the House what work has been ongoing on this? I note the Secretary General of the Department and the Clerk of the Seanad will no longer be involved. Are there any downsides to that?

The unit in the Department is being called the transition team. Outside of setting up the commission, has any work been done yet on boundaries in relation to data analysis? I would expect there has been and while I do not think there should not have been, I just want to confirm that. Once the census findings are out, that will have to flow quickly so I expect that work should have commenced.

The issue in respect of the electoral register will have a huge role in this regard. We cannot continue the way we have been going on. It has been farcical at some points as to how it is being kept up to date. As it is quite bizarre to have the issues we do in these days of data analytics and data management, I expect a huge amount of work to go into that.

Furthermore, there is the whole issue of digital advertising, which has changed everything in political campaigning. It will be very interesting to see where the commission goes on that and how strong it will be. I expect and hope some ground rules will be set because we all know the lines between misinformation and disinformation and real information are becoming quite blurred. From a democratic point of view, it is critically important we set some really sincere and strong ground rules.

While I am speaking on this, and obviously the local boundaries will not be part of this commission's first outing but will be the new Dáil boundaries, I hope the commission will have a significant role in looking at Seanad reform as regards constituencies. The days of configuring with what we have should be long past. We have been at this for 40 or 50 years. It should have some opinion on this. The idea that there is a university down the road whose graduates get to elect three Senators is just elitist and wrong - and, yes, that is coming from me - as is the fact other universities do the same while some other third level institutions do not get to vote. I do not believe education should be a premium by which anyone gets to vote in Seanad elections. The Seanad should exist, despite a Government I was part of trying to get rid of it. I voted to save it but I believe the franchise should be open to everybody and that Members of Seanad Éireann should be elected under new constituencies on the same day as Dáil elections are held, so that people can make a choice and decide which House they want to try to get into and participate in.

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