Results 8,341-8,360 of 9,814 for speaker:Steven Matthews

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Ms Lane for that response. I call Mr. Joyce.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Mr. Joyce for that response. I must move on. Will will take the second Fianna Fáil time slot?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Senator Fitzpatrick can proceed.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank the Senator for that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Senator Fitzpatrick. We are nearly up to the four minutes with the questions.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Perhaps the witnesses could be brief in their responses. There are four more members to get through and we have 27 minutes left. Senator Fitzpatrick's first question was to Mr. Joyce, on the minority advisory committee for Travellers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Mr. Joyce. Senator Fitzpatrick had other questions. There is a further Fianna Fáil slot and we might try to get to those two questions then for the other two witnesses.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I appreciate that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: That was more than five minutes so I must ask only one of the witnesses to respond very briefly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Mr. Doorley for his brief responses. It is now my turn to ask questions. In your opening statement, Mr. Doorley, you said that 22% of young people are not registered to vote, which means that 78% are registered. That actually seems quite high. What would be the average level of registration among the various age cohorts? Of the 78% that are registered, how many actually go out...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: That could be one of this committee's recommendations vis-à-visthe electoral commission. We could suggest that it examine voter turnout among those young people who are registered. Over the past couple of years, we have seen a lot of youth engagement with the political system. I am thinking of the climate strikes in particular, as well as the two referendums on marriage equality and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Thank you, Mr. Doorley. On that same point, Mr. Joyce gave us a figure of approximately 50,000 in terms of the size of the Traveller community. Does he have any idea how many Travellers are on the electoral register? Has any research been done on that? If people are on the register and their voting card arrives, there is a possibility they will vote but if they are not on the register,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Mr. Joyce. I must cut myself short now in order to be fair to everybody else. I apologise to Ms Lane. I wanted to ask her about the fact that female politicians seem to get much more online abuse than their male counterparts and to hear her views on the cowardly pile-ons from far right and racist groups that we often see on Twitter. It is incumbent on every politician and everyone...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Yes. Would the witnesses like to respond to the Senator's two previous questions that we did not have an opportunity to get to earlier?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Go ahead Ms Lane.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Mr. Doorley and Senator Fitzpatrick. We now move to a Fine Gael slot. Who would like to contribute?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: Go ahead Senator.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Senator Cummins and call Mr. Doorley.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I would appreciate it if Ms Lane could be as brief as possible because we are coming to the end of the session.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (8 Jun 2021)

Steven Matthews: I thank Ms Lane and Senator Cummins. We are out of time. I thank Ms Brack, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Doorley, Ms McCarthy Flynn and Ms Lane for their attendance. It has been an interesting and engaging two hours during which I think we have learned a lot. Our guests' opening submissions and the answers they have given to questions will feed into our pre-legislative scrutiny report. If there were...