Michael McCarthy (Labour)

Yesterday in Iraq, sovereignty was handed back to an interim Iraqi Government, and Paul Bremer has now left that country. In that context, will President Bush and Prime Minister Blair now apologise to the people of Iraq and the international community for waging an illegal war since the start of last year against the wishes of many in the international community and the fundamental ethos of the United Nations? It is abhorrent that those two men can get away with what they perpetrated in that country over the past year.

In that context also, during President Bush's visit to this country last weekend the protests in Shannon and elsewhere were peaceful and democratic. I realise there was much hype surrounding the visit and an expected level of violence in some quarters and it is good for democracy that that uglier element of protest did not prevail last weekend. It was good to see a forum in which people could protest peacefully.

Some weeks ago there was a call for a debate on the controls in regard to the registers of electors. In the aftermath of an election many calls are made in that regard and then forgotten but this is an important issue. People's names were removed from electoral registers throughout the country, in many cases for political motives. That casts serious aspersions on the current system, which is wide open to abuse. An independent commission should be appointed to examine and overhaul the system. Such a commission should have absolute authority in deciding people's eligibility to vote and who should be on the register.

Senator O'Toole commented in a humorous fashion on a very serious canvassing incident in County Wexford during the recent local elections. When the Taoiseach's signature is forged, serious questions must be raised about the abuses that take place in the highly charged atmosphere of an election. There are secondary issues that take the gloss off this incident, such as the abuse of Oireachtas envelopes. The largest victim is the body politic. I ask the Leader to ensure that Oireachtas committees recognise that such abuses and the forging of officeholders' signatures should be severely punished.