James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I thank all the Senators who contributed to this important debate. I saw in the media recently where the Taoiseach stated that he witnessed 80 people voting from a one, three or four-bedroom house. I wonder why he did not take action at that time. The Taoiseach always looks for a way out. He probably slept on it for a few nights and discovered it was a bad dream or a haunted house.

The electoral register is a pivotal element of any democracy, and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government is charged by the people to maintain it in a proper and correct manner. That is what we are asking for in our motion.

It is evident that the Minister has taken his eye off the ball with this issue. It is ongoing, and I referred earlier to Senator Brian Hayes highlighting matters when he wrote to the Minister of the Environment and Local Government after the last local and European elections. He highlighted the issues which we have again highlighted in this motion. The Minister has failed to discharge his duties in this manner.

This is the second debacle on our political system in the past two years. We witnessed the e-voting matter and now it is the state of the electoral register. It is the political responsibility for the Minister to deal with the register and ensure its accuracy. It is not an issue where blame can be placed on public servants. I heard the Minister in a radio interview last week where he was attempting to blame local authority officials and public servants in the local authorities. He stated that all local authorities in the country were awash with money.

The Minister must realise this is not true. We are all familiar with particular regions and are all aware of local authorities which have been waiting for several years for funding for sewerage or water schemes but have still not received it. The Minister had the cheek to say on a radio show that local authorities were awash with money. Several mayors have contacted me to point out that this was not the case. A special contribution will have to be set aside for the upgrading and correction of the registers.

The electoral register is a fiasco, not just in Dublin, Cork and Galway but in every county. It is up to the Government to amend it to eliminate the hundreds of thousands of errors that exist. It is important that it is checked because if it is not it will distort the election result next year and debase our democratic process.

University students will be seeking employment when third level colleges close for the summer recess. They would be ideally suited to undertake the work and carry out important remedial works to the register. The Government must not ignore the ability and energy of our young people, which its amendment does by suggesting the re-employment of enumerators who worked on the census. Student schemes operate in every local authority in the country and most can take on approximately 12 students. The exceptions are smaller local authorities which are starved of cash by the Government. The Government should ensure a plan is put in place for students to be taken on because they are ideal and it would introduce them to the political process.

The Minister cannot hide his head in the sand on the issue, which is what he is trying to do. Our proposal for a link between PPS numbers and the electoral register and for employing third level students to make door to door inquiries must be accepted and put into action. As I said earlier today a small percentage of the €50 million squandered on the e-voting system by the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, and his colleagues would have financed a complete overhaul of the electoral register.

There was no mention in the Minister of State's speech of new polling stations to cater for the increased population and to take into account new developments that have taken place at various locations throughout the country. He must take that on board and order them to be opened in the relevant areas. He also quoted the report of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. One would think there were billions of people to cater for. The population of the country stands at only 4 million people, little more than half the population of London, yet the Government still cannot get it right.