Derek McDowell (Labour)

This is a serious issue. The integrity of the register of electors is central to the integrity of the democratic system. If the discrepancies in the register are of the variety and quantity that has been reported, we have something serious to worry about. Perhaps the Minister can take this opportunity to put some information on the record of the House.

I am familiar with the system used by Dublin City Council to check whether people are on the register of electors and whether they are still living in the house in which they are registered. The council lets the matter sit for a couple of years. If it does not receive a return from a person in a given year, it will not take him or her off the register until it has received a return from another person living at that address. If a person does not make a return for a number of years, the council will eventually remove him or her from the register.

Have local authorities been given any guidelines on how to guarantee the integrity of the register of electors? Is a particular mechanism used throughout the country? Do all the local authorities use the same sort of procedure? Do they just make it up as they go along? I suspect the latter is the case.

I do not know whether we should develop a system based on PPS numbers. It seems to me there must be an electronic means of maintaining a national database. I assume there is no national database at present. I imagine that the register of electors is based on local authority areas or constituencies. Surely there is a case for a national database that makes it possible to check whether a person is registered to vote in two different constituencies, or to vote several times in the same constituency. It is obvious that such a database would require some form of identification of individuals. Perhaps people can be identified on the basis of their PPS numbers. There may be an argument in favour of issuing ID cards which are specific to this purpose.

As I said on Second Stage yesterday, an argument can be made in favour of allowing people to vote at any polling station. If a person presents himself or herself at any polling station, with a valid ID number that indicates he or she is registered to vote in a particular constituency, he or she should be allowed to cast his or her vote there. By doing that, we would make it easier for people to vote.