Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Roche, to the House. Like Senator McHugh, I am perturbed by the state of the electoral register in the various constituencies. I have first-hand knowledge of my own constituency, but other politicians have told me about the position in their constituencies. I am not sure that I agree with the suggestion in The Sunday Tribune that there are approximately 800,000 discrepancies in the electoral register.

I do not doubt that there is no proper method of ensuring that people's names are included on the register. There was a time when rate collectors called from door to door to ascertain whether, since the last time they had called, anyone in each house had passed the age of 18, died or moved to another address. They compiled the various material on the basis of the facts they acquired. Many years have passed since that procedure was last completed. Nobody is now charged with collecting the data for the national register.

It is not good enough to refer to the frenzied advertisements which advise one to go to the local Garda station if one wants to be registered as an elector. When I sent two young women to a Garda station in such circumstances, they were sent packing by a garda who said "I know nothing about that". When they went to the civic offices in the town hall, as the advertisements in question suggested, they encountered a girl in the customer care department who also said she knew nothing about that. Nobody is attending to the electoral register. The county seat of County Westmeath is Mullingar — it should be Athlone, but that is another point. People in Athlone who want to check whether they are on the electoral register must travel 30 miles because they know they will be given an obtuse answer over the telephone.

A dramatic initiative needs to be taken to update the national electoral register. It is not correct to state that the turnout in a certain constituency was 49% or 52% because the register has not been updated. My political team took a dramatic initiative, of the type that is needed on this occasion, in the Athlone area before a general election in the late 1980s. We went through the various registers to draw up a list of those who should not have been on them because they had died or moved to another location. When we gave the list to a court, on 18 December of the year in question, the names were deleted from the register.

I do not think it is right for politicians to have to resort to engaging in the massive amount of work involved in updating the electoral register. One can be accused of deleting names which should remain on the register. On the occasion to which I have referred, a man wrote us a letter to say he was going to take us to court for removing his name from the register. He said that his name should not have been deleted because he was still alive, but I do not know what he was worried about because he was living in County Kildare.

I ask the Minister to outline the ideas and initiatives which have been proposed in this regard within the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. A massive reorganisation of the electoral register is needed. Changes are needed when people sadly pass away, move to another area or celebrate their 18th birthday. When one is canvassing during the last week of an election campaign, it can be quite saddening to find that one would get six votes in a house if the people living there were registered. It is too late to register new electors at that stage. In such circumstances, the people who are not registered sometimes turn on the person who is looking for their votes. They blame the candidate for their absence from the register. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this matter.