Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last Saturday was the annual deadline by which members of the public could register to vote. This was yet another year in which the Department for Housing, Planning and Local Government failed to bring this deadline to the attention of young people and other potential voters in this State, leaving much of the responsibility for registration of potential voters to civic society groups. This deadline for registration was crucial as an election looked imminent and in the context of the upcoming referendum in 2018 on the eighth amendment.

A report of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in 2008 found that the process of voter registration is archaic and outdated. Since then, there has been no genuine reform. Any queries or proposals on electoral reform in this House, for example, have been batted away and no real progress has been made. This year Galway County Council provided a facility which allowed people to input their details on the RFA form online to become a registered voter. While this was a show of ingenuity, it was in the absence of a centralised system or structure. I ask that the Leader request the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government to come before the House to reaffirm his commitment to establish an electoral commission and to outline the timeline in which this can be achieved.