Maurice Hayes (Independent)

The point I was going to raise has been fairly adequately dealt with by Senator Mansergh. Many people think the grounds for revocation were decidedly iffy. I am glad the Taoiseach has asked for the grounds, and if he is not able to tell us what the grounds were at least he could tell us that there were grounds. One suspects it had more to do with political expediency than with security.

I would like to touch briefly on Senator Ryan's point on the way we deal with European legislation. While nine out of ten directives are quite routine, every now and again there is one which has important implications for human and civil rights which there should be some way of flagging.

While I would support the plea for a revision of the electoral arrangements and the register, as a simple voter in Northern Ireland, the system there appears to be designed to keep people from voting as much as anything else. At a time when the problem is to get young people to vote, the system should be voter friendly while at the same time designed to prevent fraud and so on.