Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I agree. We could ask for two weeks, another two weeks and another two weeks. I smile when I see "massive U-turn" written in the newspapers. The Minister just responded that an extra few weeks were needed. I congratulate him for having done that. Having pressed for and got a couple of weeks, people could ask for another two weeks and another two weeks.

When I left the House a while ago my director of elections called to say that he got a list of the deletions from the county council. I do not know whether the Minister's magic wand was at work, because I could not get that list for ten days, yet it has now miraculously appeared. My director of elections was told it was because the council was waiting for the issue to be made law. If we kept on deleting names, we could be here for a long time. The election would be upon us and there would be no register at all.

Every day we go out, we receive more and more names, and one must wonder how they will all fit in. Senator Brady does not mind, but I find the Garda aspect irksome. The person who wishes to register must go into the barracks and the garda in charge of the register may not be there, so the person must come back again. One would want to have a big ambition to get on the electoral register before all those conditions were fulfilled. However, to push back the date again would be a negation of justice for many people.

There is now a great interest in the electoral register which never existed before. Ordinary people are now talking about the register all the time. One woman told me that she found her name on the register after checking the Internet and that she was delighted about that. People who were not on the register before felt it was the fault of the politician who landed on the person's doorstep. I think we will have an accurate register.

Since I have the Minister at close quarters — close enough, anyway — I must tell him that I do not agree with the "two strikes and you are out" policy, for when the enumerator calls to a house twice but there is nobody there. Senator Bannon is right about that. People are gone from dawn to dusk in many houses, and if an enumerator calls twice and they are not there, people on the councils are automatically taking them off the register. It is vital to get the list of deletions so that we can work through that list and put forward the names that should not have been deleted.

I fully approve of the deletion of the names of those who have passed away. We know the old adage that dead men do not vote, but unfortunately they did in some areas. However, the "two strikes and you are out" policy is harsh. It all depends on the enumerators. Some of them are utterly zealous and they wish to follow through on whatever orders they received by the Minister, as translated by the county council.

People should appreciate that we got the two extra weeks, and much work has gone on in that time. We had a county council meeting last Friday week and I could not believe that everybody was bent over the pink sheets. The room was full and everyone had a pink sheet in front of them. They were ticking, checking and shouting.