Alan Kelly (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House. He is one of the few senior Ministers who comes to the House and appears to listen, which is novel and nice to see.

Most political parties should not have a major issue with this. It is something for which my party has a track record in terms of the legislation introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin. Much of it still stands and provides the basis for election spending rules and the way in which elections are conducted. I wish the Minister well in this. I hope it will bring some form of consolidation of legislation and also modernise it.

Voter participation is an area that must be dealt with by whatever commission is set up. I will not go into detail but the Senators will know what is meant. The programme of reform intended to address this has diminished over the past years. It needs to be accelerated.

I have looked at the commitment regarding an electoral commission in the programme for Government. The Minister mentioned a standing commission to deal with elections, electoral reform and constituency boundaries, etc. More detail is needed. Senator Boyle provided some clarification but more is needed, including clarification on what is meant by a standing commission, how it would operate, etc. There will be concern if that much is not known in advance. We have an independent constituency commission so I would like to know more about the proposed role of a standing commission.

I accept that it would be preferable if counties, particularly smaller ones, were not divided. It is ridiculous that small areas are taken from some counties that then have no necessary correlation with the parent constituency. In many areas across the country there are constituencies which are trans-county and trans-local authority. Following the implementation of the recommendations of the most recent boundary commission report in my own area, I will be dealing with three different local authorities, North Tipperary, South Tipperary and Offaly. In addition, I will possibly be dealing with four urban areas, Templemore, Thurles, Nenagh — with which I already have dealings — and, eventually, a small part of Birr because of its connection with south Offaly. Senators can imagine my concern. Such situations should be avoided, although that may not be possible in all instances. I have spoken to the county managers who also have similar concerns. Administrators and members of the public will be affected.

I would encourage the commission or any such body to take into consideration the pronouncements by the High Court judge, Mr. Justice Frank Clarke, who made recommendations regarding the use of preliminary census figures. In such cases there would not then be a scenario such as there is in Dublin West. Mr. Justice Clarke's strong recommendation should be taken on board.

Unlike Senator Coffey, I welcome the proposal regarding local elections and the three seat constituencies. I agree with the Minister on this point. From a PR point of view, the more we can press for what the Minister has proposed — a mix of four and five seat constituencies with the optimum constituency size in most cases being five seats — the better. Six seat constituencies could be looked at from a national point of view. There is merit in that proposal. It does not have to apply to rural areas but could be used in certain circumstances where other criteria do not allow common geographic layers to bind. For example, in Limerick East, 14,000 voters were transferred to Kerry North, an anomaly that one hopes the proposed commission could help avoid.

The Labour Party made a submission last year stating that a fundamental requirement for the constituency commission must be to protect the element of proportionality, to ensure the closest possible correlation between the share of the votes a party gets and the number of seats it secures. Statistics provided to the commission by my party clearly show that larger constituencies provide a greater degree of proportionality. In that case, six seat constituencies would be welcome. Unfortunately this was not taken into account. In Kerry South, for which I have a deep love, the franchise and proportional representation will now be called into question because it will only have two seats in the next election. That is a genuine concern.

The Labour Party believes the law should be changed to allow for a two stage process to the finalisation of future reports. If the commission is not in place, we believe that initial submissions should be made and a preliminary report produced. Any commission in place should not have to automatically act on further submissions but it should take them on board. It would be a two step process, and any major concerns which build up a head of steam could be aired. People would be happy that they were aired, even if they were not taken on board. A number of Members of this House have expressed concerns about Limerick, Kerry, Leitrim and so forth and that would be a way of airing those concerns.

I will not delve into the ridiculous nature of the electronic voting issue other than agree with Senator Coffey that the Minister would get credit for acknowledging that it has not worked and getting rid of the machines. I laughed when somebody appearing before one of the Oireachtas committees congratulated the Department on the machines only costing €500,000 per year. It was down from €750,000. We need an electronic voting mechanism but we do not need an electronic counting mechanism. We could have one but we must also have a verifiable way of doing it. I am not convinced that anything else is required. I do not believe in IT gimmicks. There must be a consistent approach to how elections are managed across the country. There are issues with how some local authorities do things and with the people who work for local authorities working at election counts and so forth. There is inconsistency in how matters are dealt with and that is not proper. I do not wish to take the route taken in the US, which is worrying to say the least.

We must ensure the electoral register is accurate, can prevent fraud and is simple to use when people are trying to register. I agree with the Green Party that PPS numbers should be used. It has been successful in Northern Ireland. It is accurate. The PPS number is what a database analyst would call a unique key identifier. It travels with the person wherever they go. Use of the PPS number would limit concerns about fraud, nature of use and so forth. As the winner of the national e-Government award two years ago, I am still not convinced about e-voting and voting on-line. My knowledge of the subject leads me to believe it is open to fraud. Postal voting should and could be used more extensively.

I hope the Minister will support the Bill on local election spending, sponsored by my colleague, Deputy Ciarán Lynch. Everybody has concerns about this subject. Although provision was made in the 1997 Act introduced by the then Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, relating to local authority electoral spending, it was never implemented and in 1999, the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government got rid of it. I hope the Minister will change this and accept Deputy Lynch's legislation or implement such a measure as soon as possible. If one can spend as much as one wishes in a local election, one does not know where it could lead. It could bring one into the Seanad. It is amazing what can happen if one can get onto a local authority in the first place. The amount of money that is spent sometimes is worrying. A number of Members have expressed their concerns about this in the past. I believe local authorities and local representatives should be brought under the remit of the Standards in Public Office Commission.

Specific concern has been expressed by the Standards in Public Office Commission — this should be brought to the attention of the electoral commission — that if it or people working for a future commission repeatedly make strong recommendations, they should be taken on board and implemented. The Standards in Public Office Commission has made certain recommendations regarding the provision of inquiry officers, where a complaint has not been made about a public representative. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister for Finance should take this recommendation on board and implement it. If there were an independent commission in place, it could take care of it. It is a concern, however, that this has not happened to date.

I welcome this proposal although we must wait for the legislation. The timeframe of eight weeks is good, if ambitious. I wish the Minister well with it.