Results 9,721-9,740 of 15,009 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: I will make a final comment and then defer to my colleague, Deputy Gould. I request that at a later stage the committee would write to the Ceann Comhairle for an opinion on the matter. Again, I am not seeking to delay the process of the committee, but it is unheard of for a Chair to deny a member of a committee the right to participate as a member. I would like the Ceann Comhairle's ruling...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: I thank Deputy Higgins and I will do my very best to answer her questions factually. We do not scape any data from any source. We do what any other party does and at times cross-reference the electoral register from the marked register. That is an ordinary part of electoral canvassing and something parties have done for a long time.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: We would cross-reference the marked register in certain circumstances with the Abú system during and immediately after an election campaign.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: In certain circumstances, yes.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No, and this is an important point, because, like all members of this committee, we take those data protection issues very seriously. For example, in my own constituency, the only people who will have access to Abú during and shortly after an election are the candidates and those people nominated by the candidates. They would be very few in number, such as a director of elections or a...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: In what sense?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No. For example, the data is presented in exactly the same way as the electoral register in the sense that it would be by street name, as the printed register is.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: I do not believe it would be. What I would say to Deputy Higgins, if this gives her any reassurance, is that we are engaging extensively with the Data Protection Commissioner. Any information she asks for, we provide so that she can make a determination as to our compliance.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: Absolutely, and very successfully so.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: It would have been, yes.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No, in fact, we would have used very little online advertising. Also, to be very clear, Deputy Higgins, we would never use the electoral register or information gleaned from canvassing, or the Abú system, for any of our online advertising. It is obviously recorded in Facebook for the public to see.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No. For example, the typical type of advertising is when we have organic content, we would boost it at a constituency level, geographically or by age, etc.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: We do not use any information from the electoral register or canvass returns in any of our online advertising activity. All of the online advertising activity is done in exactly the same way as Deputy Higgins, or any other party, would do in the course of an election or outside of an election.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No, absolutely not.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: That would be a very straightforward thing, namely, face-to-face interactions. They would ordinarily be at the door but sometimes you will do a canvass at a stall or some other location. They would be recording face-to-face interactions during an election canvass, during an election period.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: No, absolutely not. Again, let me be very clear so there is no confusion. We do not take any information from social media or, as Senator Fitzpatrick asked, from our constituency work as politicians and in any way cross-reference, upload or integrate that with the electoral register. The electoral register is purely for canvassed returns and get-out-the-vote operations during an election...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: Absolutely not.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: Usually, there would be no data recorded in that. I suppose it is just one of the fields that the designer of the system put in. The only thing I could think of from my personal experience is every so often when you are on a canvass, as I am sure Deputy Higgins knows, and somebody who is a voter for your party requests, for example, that they would like a lift to the polling station on the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: First of all, with respect to the particular advertisement, a proper way of characterising it is that there were not 17 different versions of the advertisement, it was the same advertisement in that instance. What we were interested in doing was seeing how different demographics would react to it. As Deputy Higgins knows, it is a facility Facebook provides and therefore you might have had...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Electoral Reform Bil 2020: Discussion (Resumed) (20 May 2021)
Eoin Ó Broin: First of all, from my experience, it would be very rare that a constituency would have the capacity to do that.