John Kelly (Labour)

There is much merit in Sinn Féin's amendment No. 13. The Labour Party has always argued a vote should be related to a person's personal public service number, PPS, number. However, the timing may not be right as we recently found out that there are 7.2 million PPS numbers in circulation for a population of 4.5 million. Before we try to introduce a PPS-based register, we need to clean up our act with the issuing of PPS numbers.

I agree some consideration should be given to allowing a postal vote for those who may be on holiday during an election.

While I do not intend to press my amendment No. 5, for which I received notification that it could be tabled at the 11th hour, I do hope there will be an all-party debate on each constituency returning five or six Deputies.