Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

——but we receive no benefit from the money currently spent on the storage of e-voting machines. I hope the Minister will act promptly in this matter.

I support Senator Ellis, who is from County Leitrim, on the remarks he made about that county. The county should be re-united for electoral purposes. The boundary commission should have examined this matter in more detail. It is very poor form that County Leitrim has no representative in the Dáil. It is bad form that Leitrim was divided in the first place. I hope the Minister will examine this issue again and that in future the electoral commission will do so.

We are all aware of cases where counties have been divided. The most recent report proposed to add a slice of County Limerick to County Kerry and Senator Coffey referred to County Waterford. I recall when County Mayo had two three-seater constituencies. One part of County Galway was added to the constituency of west Mayo and another part was included in the constituency of east Mayo. Nobody knew whether they would be in for one term or two terms. Parts of counties that are added to bigger counties do not get the full representation they would have received had they been retained with the county boundaries. I support Senator Ellis's points in this regard.

Everybody should have to register to vote. Senator Glynn referred to a number of reasons why people should register. Jury service is one important reason, as those who are not on the voting register do not get called for jury service. This is a very important part of our democratic make-up. There is an obligation on us as legislators to ensure everybody is registered to vote once they reach the age of 18. It may not be mandatory for people to vote but it should be mandatory for them to register to vote.

I support what Senator Doherty said about the difficulty experienced by some people in getting on the electoral register. I deplore the amount of money wasted prior to the general election in order to get people on the electoral register. I was contacted at the time by a person from Naas who had to travel to Maynooth to get a garda to sign the necessary form. It is difficult to imagine that one would have to travel this far to get a garda but this case was replicated in every constituency. In many cases when one goes to a Garda station one only meets the "green man" on the door and it is not much good to only speak to someone if one wants a form signed.

We cannot hinder people from getting on the electoral register. We should help them. There must be a better system of registration than is the case at present. Local authority revenue collectors could play a greater role in this regard. They should be properly financially resourced in order to do this job. When the extra funding was provided by the then Minister, Deputy Roche, prior to the previous election, in some cases people went into urban and rural areas who did not know where they were going or what they were doing. A great deal of money was squandered. A better system must be put in place. More efficient use can be made of revenue collectors because they know exactly where they are going and who are their clients. They know the constituents and the housing estates. In most cases they know the rural areas also.

I welcome the debate and compliment the Green Party on bringing it forward. This is an important issue and there is a great deal of merit in what is proposed in the motion. This is Fine Gael Party policy also. I accept it will be a big task to bring all of this together. The Minister appears to be taking the correct approach. I am delighted that he said he expects to receive a report in eight weeks' time.