Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

——a transferable vote, precisely. With the greatest respect to the Minister of State and other Dublin city based general election candidates, some people may not necessarily want to vote in Dublin. I am not discussing personalities. They may prefer to vote in their own local areas and we should have a mechanism to allow them to do so.

I agree that many of those measures would and can be incorporated in a long-term policy. In the immediate future there are difficulties. We should seriously consider a mechanism, which would not take a long time to develop, whereby local authorities use on-line registration for voting using a code or PIN for identification to verify a legitimate voter.

There is a problem in the short term in the proposal of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, regarding organising personnel within a local authority. The use of enumerators or a summer scheme for students can be operated quickly, efficiently and effectively. Many third level institutions have courses in politics and other related subjects. They would be particularly suitable for doing this. I am not sure how practical it is to have a second visit to a house between now and November for the registration of a vote.