Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I ask the Leader to request that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government come before the House to explain the reason he is spending more than €4.5 million on a public relations campaign on electronic voting when only €160,000 was spent recently on the registration of voters. In a survey carried out by the Central Statistics Office following the previous election, more than 20% of those questioned cited the fact that they were not registered as a reason for not voting. If one extrapolates this figure, it could mean that as many as 250,000 people cannot vote because they are not registered.