Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Citizens’ Assemblies Bill 2019 is a technical Bill to enable the register of electors to be used for selecting members of the citizens’ assemblies which the Government agreed on 11 June to establish. Two assemblies are being established, the Citizens’ Assembly 2019 and the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly. The role of the Citizens’ Assembly will be to bring forward proposals to advance gender equality under a number of specific headings. The role of the Dublin Citizens’ Assembly will be to consider the best model of local government for Dublin and, in particular, the issue of a directly-elected mayor and his or her powers. These assemblies will operate under the aegis of the Department of the Taoiseach and will comprise a chairperson and 99 citizens selected randomly from local authorities’ registers of electors. The same chairperson but a different selection of 99 persons from the Dublin local authorities' registers of electors will make up the Dublin Citizens' Assembly. The assemblies are to be run consecutively, commencing with the Citizens' Assembly on gender equality at the end of October this year, and will take six months each to complete the work involved.

The Government decision requires the establishment of the assemblies to be approved by resolutions of both Houses of the Oireachtas. In order to proceed with the establishment of the assemblies as proposed, it is necessary to introduce legislation to allow the register to be used for the selection of assembly members. This is because section 13A(3) of the Electoral Act 1992 provides that the use of the register of electors is confined to electoral and other statutory purposes. Such a statutory purpose is provided, for example, in the Juries Act for the selection of members of juries. A similar approach was taken previously in 2012 when arrangements were being made for the membership of the then proposed Convention on the Constitution and again in 2016 for the then proposed Citizens’ Assembly. A polling company will be commissioned for the selection process. Its brief will be the selection of a representative sample of the Irish electorate, with regard to gender, age and regional spread. The selection process will be overseen by the independent chairperson of the assembly.

I will outline the detail of the Bill. Section 1 of the Bill provides that information in the electoral register may be used for the purpose of selecting citizens of Ireland to participate in both assemblies. It provides in subsection (2) that section 13A(3) of the Electoral Act 1992, which confines the use of the electoral register, shall not apply in the establishment of these citizens’ assemblies. In subsection (3) definitions are provided for "the Act of 1992", "the edited register" and "the register of electors". Section 2 of the Bill contains standard provisions dealing with the Title and construction of the Bill. In summary, the sole purpose of this Bill is to provide in statute for the use of the electoral register in the selection of members of the two citizens’ assemblies. The Bill is required to facilitate the establishment of the assemblies, the calling of which will be approved by resolution of the House in due course. I commend the Bill to the House.