Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

——and that is a cogent reason for people getting on the register now. The Senator will be surprised to learn that for the last general election, 50,000 people used the device of the supplementary register. The supplementary register was introduced because people were changing houses, and also because young people were reaching 18 and being disenfranchised, in effect, for long periods of time. However, there is no purpose or benefit to continually pushing out this. One must put in the effort and get the job done well, which is what is happening. Councils have until 2 January to carry out all their back office work. They have more resources than ever before and this year a sum of €12 million has been put into this task.

While Senator Bannon made the point that councils do not have sufficient resources, I must disagree because councils determine their own budgets. Councils that were serious about democracy would devote sufficient money to preparing the register. As for the registration process, I am critical of councils in one respect, namely, their failure to assign sufficient priority to this task. Preparing the electoral roll, which is fundamental to democracy, is one of the councils' most important tasks.

I was somewhat angry with one or two councils that stated they lacked resources to so do. I made the point to one or two council officials that, while there are never problems as far as going to the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York is concerned, there is something of a problem when it comes to doing the democratic thing in Ireland. As I did not wish to quibble with the councils this year, I doubled the amount of money. No Minister in the history of the State has ever put resources into this issue. Although Ireland will have the best register it has ever had by the conclusion of this process, it will not be perfect. No country in the world has a perfect register because as soon as one finishes preparing one's register, people will die or move house and it goes out of date.