Rory O'Hanlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Ceann Comhairle)
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We resume the debate on amendment No. 28a, to conclude within one hour. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, was in possession. Amendment No. 28a is being discussed with amendments Nos. 30a and the amendment to amendment No. 30a, on recommittal. Had the Minister concluded his contribution?

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I was just about to finish, a Cheann Comhairle. In fact, I manfully delayed matters because I knew Deputy Gilmore wanted to talk on the issue covered by his amendment. I support the spirit of his amendment and I am trying to strengthen it somewhat. As regards amendment No. 28a, the nub of the issue is that we are allowing additional time for councils to complete their work on the electoral register for 2007-08. We are also allowing members of the public more time to return their registration forms to city councils. The effect will be that councils will have until 2 January to complete their work and the public will have an extension until 9 December to return forms that were sent to them in the earlier part of November. The amendment provides a new timetable and, as I have already explained to the House, the new timetable arises from the reality that there is a flexible arrangement within the existing legislation where all the dates are set out.

On amendment No. 30a, I am happy to accept the underlying proposals that local authorities should be able publicly to make available lists of persons listed on the current register but who are not listed on the draft register. These are the lists of deletions. Many local authorities had already done that but, as Deputy Gilmore has pointed out, a number of Labour and Sinn Féin Members were refused the deletion list. That was an inappropriate decision and to put the matter beyond any doubt I accept the spirit of the Labour Party amendment. I have, however, had the amendment examined by the Parliamentary Counsel, as I promised I would do. My amendment seeks to retain much of the proposed language, while improving the text by, first, keeping more closely to the legal language already included in the Second Schedule of the 1992 Act and, second, by not confining publication of the list to before the closing date for submission times, as regards claims for correction. In other words, I am not confining it to 25 November. It is prudent that the list should be available. Effectively, therefore, I am opening the matter up beyond what the Deputy sought to do. I believe it was imprudent of councils not to make the list available. That list would have been available under the Freedom of Information Act anyhow and it should have been done speedily by councils. I am pleased to accept the spirit of Deputy Gilmore's amendment but I have inserted some additional text. I commend both amendments to the House.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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I wish to express my appreciation to the Minister for holding the fort yesterday when I was unavoidably absent and, thus, unable to move amendment No. 30a. I wish to speak to that amendment now, however, along with the others being taken with it. For some time, the Labour Party has sought an extension to the deadline for people submitting amendments to the draft register. Given the problems that arose in compiling the new register, we argued that the 25 November deadline provided insufficient time for people to respond. This was particularly so as some local authorities had not managed to notify those whose names had been deleted from the register and, therefore, such people would not have enough time to respond. I proposed an amendment along these lines on Committee Stage three or four weeks ago. It is a pity it was not accepted at the time and that the date was not extended then. I welcome the fact that it is now proposed to extend the date to 9 December.

There is a case for extending it beyond 9 December. At a practical level, that could be done because work will continue on this process up to Christmas and beyond. In that context, there is probably some latitude that could allow for the date to be extended. It would be necessary to extend the deadline arising from the Minister's effective acceptance of the amendment I propose on behalf of the Labour Party in respect of data protection issues.

As the Minister is aware, the data protection issues arose from requests made by Members of the House to local authorities to supply the list of deletions from the draft register. Given the time constraints involved, this was a means of quickly cross checking the list of deletions with local information available to Members of the House and others active in the political process. Some local authorities refused to supply that list of deletions. In the case of my local authority, I was told that the computer would crash if it had to print the list of deletions. In the case of South Dublin County Council, the response given to my party leader was that there was an issue in respect of the Data Protection Acts. For purposes of clarification, the response given by the local authority through the Data Protection Commissioner in that case in a letter to Deputy Rabbitte, dated 23 November, stated:

In our advisory role we were approached on the issue of the provision of lists of persons who were on the old electoral register and not on the new draft register. Following various contacts, we provided the following advice in an email to South Dublin County Council:

There is no data protection difficulty with an elected representative pursuing queries in relation to the status of individual persons on the electoral register if doing it on their behalf and, thereby, the consent of the person in question will legitimise the making available of the information. Equally, there is no problem with an elected representative pursuing queries in relation to blocks of houses in a particular area that are no longer on the register, as this is aggregate data and there is no personal data involved. We also see no difficulty with supplying an electronic copy of the draft register, as is, and the previous current register to the elected representative for electoral purposes. As you have explained, you had already done this as this is standard practice. This would be as opposed to actually processing the two registers themselves and producing an extract of names that are no longer on the draft register, as this could give rise to data protection implications.

In the course of the letter the Data Protection Commissioner also stated, "Our concern relates to those individuals who deliberately choose not to be included on the register. We believe, and nobody has argued against this, that their choice must be respected". The commissioner went on to explain that the purpose of the decision was to protect the rights of those people who chose not to be on the electoral register, and that this is where the issue of data protection arises. He went on to state that this was an issue the Oireachtas might wish to address. The Oireachtas is now addressing it. We are making a change in the law, as proposed by the Labour Party and accepted by the Minister, whereby the data protection legislation will be changed to allow for the issue of lists of deletions from the old register to those who seek them, and it will not contravene the Data Protection Act.

Earlier, I drew attention to another practical issue which arises from that situation. We will complete Report Stage of this Bill within the next hour. Following the enactment of the new electoral Act there will be no legal impediment on local authorities from issuing the list of deletions.

I anticipate that practical difficulties will continue and I will be interested to see the direction given by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, to local authorities on this matter. Even if the word goes out to local authorities this evening that they can issue the list of deletions, the deadline of 9 December will be upon us by the time we receive it and deal with it. Given our actions on the issue of the list of deletions I ask the Minister to reconsider the deadline as I think it could be extended to Christmas, for practical purposes, without causing major upheavals in how the register is compiled and without interfering with the deadline of 15 February.

The work on the compilation of the register will continue until the new register is produced and I do not think an extension of the deadline of 9 December to the beginning of Christmas week will cause the practical difficulties the Minister might previously have envisaged. An extension would allow everyone to make use of the list of deletions in the most effective way possible.

The second issue to arise from the amendment is the question of people opting not to be on the electoral register. There is an assumption, made by the Data Protection Commissioner, the Minister and the Department, that there is a right to opt out of the electoral register and I question this. Historically, voting rights were related to property rights and the local authority had a list of rate payers who were, in turn, the voters. That is how local authorities came to compile the electoral register in the first place. There was no basis in law for people to opt not to pay rates at that time and I can find no legislative basis for people to opt out of the electoral register. My interpretation of the Electoral Acts is that there is a positive responsibility on the registration authorities to register people. The law does not support the Taoiseach's assertion that it is up to individuals to ensure they are on the register. The registration authorities have an obligation to register people. I will be interested to hear the Minister's response on this matter.

On the issue of data protection, some local authorities, when compiling the draft register, removed people who did not respond to the letters and the callers to their doors. Other local authorities, including that in my area, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, chose not to take that route unless there was actual evidence that a person was no longer at a particular address. Can a local authority remove a person from the register without firm evidence that the person wishes to be removed?

I am concerned that some local authorities compiled the draft register on the basis of responses they received. People will check the draft register and be satisfied that they are on it without having replied to the earlier correspondence issued by the local authority. Now the local authority may, on the basis of the earlier correspondence, remove such people from the register. This would create a triple jeopardy for people in such a situation. I want the Minister to give a clear direction to local authorities that unless concrete evidence exists that a person on the draft register is no longer where he or she was, his or her name should not be removed. This concrete evidence would include a request from a person wishing to have his or her name removed or evidence that a person has moved to a new address.

People have contacted me recently expressing their concerns that they may not have returned the relevant form to the council and that their names did not appear on the register website. When I check the hard copy of the draft register they are often on it and, in such circumstances, I assure them that they have nothing to worry about. People have been encouraged to check the draft register, they are reassured on seeing their names on it and these names should, therefore, not be removed. A direction should be given to local authorities not to create an entirely new problem by removing people from the draft register who have already checked they are on it.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Gilmore and I have discussed his important final point privately. I do not share the optimism, trumpeted in the press, of the chairman of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council that somehow the system operated there is superior to everywhere else. Deputy Dan Boyle made the point yesterday that it would be preferable if all councils operated on the same basis and that is why consolidated guidelines were issued.

Legal responsibility for producing the register lies with the councils, as Deputy Gilmore indicated. His point is important because if Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council intends to delete people from the register it will be compelled to give written notice. This is specific to Deputy Gilmore's constituency so I will send a note in this regard to the council if it would be of assistance. The Deputy is correct and that is why significant trouble was taken earlier this year to circulate and consolidate the draft guidelines. The guidelines were not produced merely to kill a few hours, they were produced because it was not right that local authorities should adopt a laissez-faire attitude, taking different approaches to compiling the register. That is an opinion I frequently expressed in this House. Responsibility for the draft register lies with local authorities, nonetheless it should be done in a coherent fashion.

I will ensure, in communicating with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, that the obligation to write to a person before deleting him or her from the register is made clear. This is an obligation contained in the guidelines that every other council has fulfilled. The double jeopardy outlined by Deputy Gilmore could become a reality if Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council enters the electoral court with a list of people to be excluded from the register. That council will have to do what every other council has done and deal with its own special arrangements which have been trumpeted up and down the country as better than every other council's. At least every other council tried to abide by a single, common set of rules and it would have been more prudent had Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council also done so.

I was anxious to allow Deputy Gilmore make his contribution because I accept that both Deputies Crowe and Rabbitte were refused access and I accept that both Members were trying to facilitate the democratic process of registration. This is something I normally find praiseworthy and I was surprised at the adjudication, to put it mildly. To ensure the adjudication goes beyond doubt we are accepting an amendment that goes somewhat further than Deputy Gilmore's original amendment.

On the issue of date, we can make it very clear in the communications that go to councils that, having sent out the deletions list and having undoubtedly received much contact from Members of this House, the other House and councillors, they cannot simply ignore them. The councils have until 2 January, and that is the latest date to allow them to make changes. I will make clear to councils that they must take cognisance of the communications they receive from Members of the Houses and members of the public before 2 January 2007. This will address the concern raised by Deputy Gilmore that local authorities will be required, when doing their back office work, to take on board specific issues raised with them.

The Data Protection Commissioner's adjudication was interesting because it specifically referred to the names of people living in certain blocks of houses being deleted from the register. As I noted last night, when Deputies Gilmore and O'Dowd were detained by other business elsewhere, the guidelines we issued earlier this year specifically requested local authorities to ensure they check their data when deleting the names of tenants of social and council housing estates. It makes no sense for a local council to remove Mr. X and Mrs. X from the electoral register if it collects rent from them a few days later and it is clear from the council's accounts that they live in the property in question. If a council is able to send persons a bill, it should not delete their names from the register because they were not at home on the night the enumerator called. I issued a circular letter to local authorities on this matter because I was concerned, having reviewed my local register, that a hard hand appeared to have been used at one or two estates where council officials and I knew people were resident.

I have asked councils to observe the spirit of the House's decision and ensure their officials, rather than adopting a jobs worth attitude, apply a degree of common sense. My amendment goes further than Deputy Gilmore's amendment as it provides that local authorities will have until 2 January to make adjustments to the electoral register. As part of this process, they must be cognisant of views expressed to them in communications. Most local authorities are doing precisely that.

Given that all local authorities operate a common system established by the Local Government Computer Services Board, I fail to understand how an authority can argue that the whole system will crash if it seeks to generate a list of deletions. I expect local authorities to respect the letter and spirit of the House's decisions. Deputies have voiced suspicions that some local authorities have been shy in sending out the deletion list because it could highlight deficiencies in their fieldwork. My support for sending out a deletions list is specifically to ensure consistency in the fieldwork, show up any glaring anomalies that may arise and make certain that the efforts of local councillors and Members and would-be Members of the Oireachtas to facilitate democracy are supported in every possible way by councils.

The Department will communicate Deputy Gilmore's valid concerns, which I share, with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I will also ensure that all councils pay respectful attention to submissions they receive from public representatives and members of the public. They will have until 2 January to make adjustments. As it is not necessary to change the 9 December deadline, I ask the Deputy not to press his amendment.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The problem with the Minister's proposal in amendment No. 28a to extend the timeframe by two weeks is that the period in question includes the Christmas holiday. As a result, the additional time available to local councils will probably be just one week. The only date not being changed is the date on which the final register must be published. This means no additions may be made to the register in the 19-day period between the deadline by which county registrars must complete their work and the date of publication of the register. This interregnum, which will be used exclusively for printing, provides a window of opportunity for the Minister to extend the deadline.

The deadline for the register is 1 February, while the final document is to be issued on 15 February. Why not postpone the publication date for the final document until 1 March?

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As I indicated last night, I do not anticipate that a general election will be held between 15 February and 1 March 2007. We would be in odd territory if we did not have a valid electoral register. I am not taking a hard-nosed position on this matter. It would create a bad precedent to extend the 15 February deadline. It is important to have a voting register. I do not disagree with the Deputy on the general issue that specifying a series of dates in primary legislation creates inflexibility.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The Minister's amendment proposes to change them.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In the Deputy's absence last night I indicated my approval of his proposal to have a rolling register. The amendment makes a specific change which applies to this year only. I am not being bloody-minded on this matter and I ask Deputies to accept my bona fides. If it had been possible to make further changes to the dates, I would have done so.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Why will the Minister not reduce by seven days the 19-day interregnum by extending the 2 February deadline by a week. He would still meet the 1 March deadline.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In normal circumstances country registrars would be able to start their work on 23 September. The time available to them is already truncated. Councils will have to work hard because, as Deputy Gilmore pointed out, if substantial changes are required after the register is signed off, some process will have to be observed. It would not be wise to change the deadlines as the local authorities have more than adequate time to do their work. One or two of them have incorrectly argued that I am making life difficult for them.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Allowing for the holiday period, the extension of the deadline by two weeks will leave just seven additional working days. For this reason, the Minister should extend the 12 January deadline to 19 January to enable the country registrars to add further names to the register. The Electoral Act 1992 gives the Minister and county registrars powers to extend the deadline for completing the electoral register. Is it open to county registrars to use the power available to them under the legislation to extend the deadlines set by the Minister?

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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No, for the good reason that county registrars must comply with the dates prescribed. They do not have the facility to ask for an extension. The mechanism to trigger an extension was available to councils.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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No, it is available to county registrars.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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No.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I ask the Minister to seek clarification on the matter from his officials. I understand the 1992 Act allows the Minister and county registrars to extend the timeframe. If a registrar asks for a timeframe to be extended, the request is automatically granted. The registrar does not need to refer to anyone else once he forms the opinion that an extension is required. This power is available to him under an emergency provision in the legislation.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I am assured that is not the case. However, the issue highlights the inflexible position in which we find ourselves. As I stated before the Committee on Environment and Local Government when Deputies Gilmore and O'Dowd asked me about extensions, it is open to me to accede to a local authority's request for an extension.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The Minister has done precisely that.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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That is not quite correct. I am not quibbling, this is significant. Under the legislation, there was a mechanism that would apparently allow the Minister to trigger an extension at the request of a local authority. In 1997, Monaghan County Council found itself in difficulties and the dates were changed, by coincidence to dates roughly the same as those I now propose. When we discussed this in the committee, my advice was that we could do that but a general change would require primary legislation.

In more recent years, there was a court case on Carrickmines and the judgment stated that a Minister should not use his powers to make regulations to amend primary law. That causes difficulties here because the 1992 Act imprudently specifies the dates in a table in the Schedule to the Act.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I do not understand what the Minister is saying. I am interested in the county registrar's position in the Act.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The county registrar cannot trigger anything beyond those dates. He has no more discretion than me.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Nevertheless he has special powers to extend the time in his administrative area if he wishes.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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He does not, he has the opportunity to amend the register. On election day, a voter might arrive at the polling station to vote only to be told he cannot vote because his name is not on the register. He can then say to the polling clerk that his name was on the proof register when he checked it. The polling clerk can check that and then contact the registrar who can say the person can vote. That is not the same as a general right of extension. The registrar has no rights above and beyond those of the Minister. The judgment on Carrickmines strictly curtailed the Minister's rights. Our electoral law has traditionally been framed by specifying dates and that causes inflexibility.

The Deputy wants to ensure the maximum possible time for all these changes. The timeframe has been extended until 2 January, which involves the Christmas and holiday periods. That is why a few years ago changes were made to restrict the timeframes to November. It is a major task. After the registrar signs off, it is a major undertaking to get the registers printed and distributed between 12 January and 1 February.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I do not think it is.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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My advice is that it would not be possible to do it any faster.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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That is where the opportunity exists. Modern technology allows for the transfer of information held on databases and most of the work is already done. The further period could be usefully examined.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I am not being difficult, I have always said that when anyone made a request I would be flexible but I have been strongly advised against doing this.

Deputy Gilmore made a good point that there are Members of this House, Deputy Crowe is one of them, who have not had access to the deletion list. I expect that if that is the case, any submissions Deputy Crowe makes up until 2 January will be respectfully treated as an attempt to ensure the democratic process is properly observed. I will capture that thought in correspondence with the council. That is as facilitative as I can be.

Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I support both amendments as they will deal with the issue of access to proper data for legitimate reasons and ensure that constituents all have their place on the register of electors. I also support the notion mentioned by the Minister of a rolling register. It would be particularly useful because society has changed so much from the times when people were in the one location for most of their lives. Clearly those days are gone and the prospect of a rolling register has a much greater appeal.

Perhaps while we work out how such a register can be established, we could deal with the present situation through the supplementary register, which at present is quite arbitrary. Names are submitted that are then held in private by the registrar. The registrar considers the applicants and neither they nor their public representatives have any input into the decision made by the registrar. By the time a person finds out if he or she is on the supplementary register, it is too late to do anything about it. It is unlikely that someone will seek a judicial review for the sake of his name appearing on the register of electors and that makes it arbitrary.

Until the establishment of a rolling register, we could deal with this crisis by making the arbitrary position of the supplementary register more accountable. The registrar could issue a draft supplementary register before the election. Issues may arise because of security concerns about those who want to go on to the supplementary register but anyone on that register could be vetted going into the polling booth. At the moment it is proposed that one person in four will be checked but 100% of those on the supplementary register could be checked for identification to ensure everything is in order.

Consideration should be given to this because the supplementary register is a safety net that could deal substantially with the genuine concerns raised by people on all sides of the House.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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I got a copy of the deleted list and the numbers who must be visited are frightening. That job will fall to those in political parties or supporters of Independents.

With the best will in the world, we will not be able to get to the people who are on the deleted list. It is not the be all and the end all but it is important and I find it useful. I have the register available in my constituency office and I have put a note in the window to that effect and callers are arriving every day. People are interested enough to check the register when it is made easy for them. I accept the Minister's point that he would expect local authorities to act in the spirit of what is intended.

Deputy Morgan made a point similar to one I made last night about the supplementary register. Some locations do not have Garda stations or 24-hour Garda stations and it is therefore not that easy to have the supplementary form countersigned in a Garda station and it will not happen in many cases. The lack of a deadline means people are less inclined to deal with the form. Most of the names on the supplementary register are signed up in the weeks preceding a general election. More could be done with regard to the supplementary register. The request for 100% identification from those on the supplementary register is a means of ensuring those on the register are eligible, authentic voters. A rolling register could be created even if this is not the best way of doing it.

The on-line system of checking the register can be problematic. I know of a person who spells their name in Irish and this was not recorded on the system because the fada had been omitted, even though the name was entered in the hard copy of the register. The on-line list is very sensitive and it is not being updated as people are added. This is understandable as there must be a system for determining whether people are eligible to vote. However, people cannot be certain that amendments have been made. Constituents have asked me to check and double check whether they have been put back on the register. Some scope for flexibility must be made available within the on-line system than is the case at present. Another constituent has a waiver for bin charges from the local county council and is on the housing waiting list but was deleted from the register. This goes against everything the Minister says is supposed to happen.

Difficulties arise because of the lack of integration among databases. It is a big job to check one database against another. I heard an official from the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner speaking on the radio today about the two registers, the public register and a private register. The form allows for a person to opt out of appearing on the public register so they are not subject to receiving junk mail. The default position should be that one is automatically presumed not to wish to be on the public register. Many companies give that option rather than the situation where a person must actively opt out. This is a practical means of ensuring the form does not deter people from completing it. A constituent of mine did not wish her family's details to be used as fodder for sales and marketing. All the members of her family opted out because they did not wish to receive junk mail.

When reading the draft register it is difficult to believe that field work was done. I have noted gaps in information from some housing estates. My constituency has a new housing estate completed every week and many new people arrive daily. However, the gaps appear in long-established housing estates. For instance, the information will be recorded for house No. 1 and then jump to house No. 12. I do not accept the argument that the houses are all rented out and that the population is transient. The deleted list will show one pattern.

Another problem I have noted which may not be picked up during a referendum, for instance, is that many people not entitled to vote in a general election will be given a vote because of the various categories of voters entitled to be on the register. There has not been sufficient scrutiny. I have noted many additional people in my area who may be non-citizens whom I would not have expected to see on the register and who will be entitled to vote in the general election. This raises issues about the validity of the register and this requires attention.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The deletions list has never before been available. I cannot accept the hypothesis that making additional information available that was never available before is a bad thing.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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I am not making that point.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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If I may make the point, the on-line access was never made available previously. This is an improvement which was introduced this year. I am smiling inwardly because one of the great silver bullet solutions suggested was to put the entire national register on a single computer. In my view, that route would really cause a problem.

The whole point and purpose of our work as politicians is to check the draft register and to find flaws in the field work. The problem to date has been that there has never been any field work done — it has been hit and miss up to date. The Deputy is correct on the point about the draft register and the deletions list. If there is an area in her constituency where she is of the view there have been wholesale deletions, I refer her to the point made by Deputy Gilmore where he made a cross reference to wholesale deletions by the local authority. I suggest she write to her local authority as I will be writing to my county councillors in that area.

Deputy Gilmore raised a point which I did not address, about people excluding themselves from the register. He asked whether a person has a right to exclude themselves from the register. All the issues in the law relating to the voting register outline the responsibilities of councils but the responsibilities of citizens are not outlined. The Act is silent, by and large, except in section 133(1), which deals with the information which a person supplies. However, the Act only deals with the situation where a person furnishes false information in a claim for correction to a draft register. It deals with somebody who is trying to stuff the register, to fraudulently enter a name on the register. There is nothing in the legislation which states a citizen must register to vote. Deputy Gilmore's point arose because there is some evidence to which I referred last night, that there are areas where people simply do not wish to put their names on the register and they have excluded themselves from the register.

This comes back to the point made by Deputy Catherine Murphy about the opt-in or opt-out nature of the register. The form has been made simpler this year than it was last year when a person was required to double-tick forms. I have given people the right to tick either to opt in or opt out, if they want the issue of confidentiality to be dealt with. I return to the point Deputy Gilmore was making. The law is silent on whether the citizen has a responsibility to vote. We have never assumed the citizen has that responsibility. I have always believed getting on the register to be part and parcel of one's responsibilities as a citizen. We have had a debate on a directly parallel issue where we spoke of people having the right to spoil their vote on polling day.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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What is your response to the issue of the supplementary register?

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The supplementary register is one of those cases where people see the difficulties with the introduction of new facilities rather than the improvements that are made. The supplementary register is a relatively recent change. It was introduced for the reasons Deputy Morgan outlined, namely, that Ireland is a rapidly changing society and the addition of people to the electoral register must be facilitated. The supplementary register facilitated two things. The first was to allow people who had changed address to be added, while the other was to allow people who had reached their 18th year to be added.

While the supplementary register was introduced to facilitate people, it has tight controls. It is not difficult to imagine that the supplementary register could be grossly abused and it is therefore necessary to have checks. Deputy Murphy said that some people would not wish to go to a Garda station to be added to the register. As I understand it, there is a provision where an individual can be added to the register in a council office. Prudence would suggest there must be some controls on the supplementary register. People cannot be added to it willy nilly. One could not tolerate having 1,000 people added to the register a couple of days before polling. Logic suggests that there must be some controls on it.

It has been argued that the supplementary register is less flexible than the other arrangement. Equally, the argument was made last night that it is more difficult to get a parking disc in a residential area than it is to get on the voting register. There must be controls otherwise there may be widespread abuse.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the amendments tabled by Deputy Gilmore and the Minister, Deputy Roche. I had a meeting with the manager of South Dublin County Council two weeks before the publication of the first draft register. I expressed my concerns about how the process was progressing in that area. I had received anecdotal evidence that people were not being called to by field workers. I also outlined the difficulties I had with not knowing who had been added to or removed from the register. I asked the manager if it would be possible for elected representatives to get a list of those deleted from the register. He said there might be a data protection problem with this.

When the draft register was published, I could see the difficulties immediately and I will give some examples. The Knockmore (2) register covers the Cushlawn area and there were 750 deletions. While there were 200 additions, 600 new housing units had been built and there should have been additions to the register rather than a net decrease of 750. Cushlawn Park is a local authority estate and no one had called to the door on behalf of the franchise office in more than half the houses I called to. Two weeks before the draft register was published, we received evidence of children going around with forms. We raised this with the manager and he said there was no way this would have been agreed to. It was suggested that perhaps local political parties were doing this.

Jobstown has 5,000 houses and 1,700 names were deleted from the register there, even though Russell Square is a development of 500 new housing units. Although there are 3,000 names on the Knockmore (1) register, it contained more than 1,400 deletions. Most of these areas contain local authority housing. I asked the manager how this could happen when the people living there are paying rent to the local authority. I accept what the Minister said regarding his guidelines to local authorities that they should pay attention to areas where a disproportionate amount of deletions were taking place. There were 2,200 deletions in one area in the Dublin Mid-West constituency. However, no alarm bells were going off within the franchise section of the local authority. They seemed to think they were doing great work and were in denial that a problem existed. I visited Russell Square last Saturday and no one knew that they had been taken off the electoral register. People were happy to be returned to it.

There are clear problems and we need more time. My local authority is not putting additional resources into areas where there clearly are problems. One can look at the socioeconomic background of the area and see there is a problem. In other areas, with older populations and with more expensive houses, it is understandable there will not be a huge amount of new couples moving to it. However, in areas where new affordable housing is being provided more people should have been added to the register, but this was not happening. The areas I have listed are ones with low turnout at local, European and Dáil elections. One will often hear people speaking about the low turnout in those areas, but people cannot vote if they are not included on the register.

I contacted the data protection agency and received different information depending on who I spoke with. At one point I was told information on the deletion of names from the electoral register could not be given to elected representatives. I was told it was no longer in the public domain. That is nonsense. One can compare the old register with the new one and deduce the deletions. One can get the register in either hard copy or on disk. Unfortunately, I did not have the resources to compare them as one was in a different format to the other.

I spoke with the deputy commissioner at the data protection agency and she said she did not have a problem with elected representatives receiving a list of those deleted. I asked if I could get a written reply to that effect, but I did not have the time to do so before the deadline — which has since been extended — ran out. I would like the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner to give its view on this. South Dublin County Council was using data protection concerns as an excuse for not releasing the information to me. I mentioned this to Deputy Rabbitte and he was as concerned about it as I was.

We want a list of those deleted because it is easier to go through it than going through the register. Deputy Catherine Murphy mentioned the gaps in the register which were apparent due to the absence of certain house numbers. I will have a better idea of who the families are when I see the names of those who have been deleted rather than simply the number of their house. This is why I want the list.

I welcome the additional time that has been given to dealing with this issue. However, local authorities need to accept that there are problems with the registers. Groups in my constituency have been working on this. The Tallaght Partnership went to the local shopping centre to try and add people to the register. The Tallaght west childhood development group was also knocking on doors.

Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but as the time permitted for this debate has expired, I am required to put the following question in accordance with an order of the Dáil of this day: That amendment No. 30a, as amended, and the amendments set down by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and not disposed of are hereby made to the Bill and that Fourth Stage is hereby completed.

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputies for their contributions. I will speak to Deputy Crowe about the specific points he made. The purpose we all have is to ensure we have the best possible register. The best way to do that is to encourage people to get on the register because, as Deputy Crowe said, if one is not on it, one cannot vote. That is the whole point of the campaign. No council can use the excuse that resources were not made available this year. We have doubled the amount of finance available and have put €1 million into an advertisement campaign.