Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward the legislation. I also thank the officials. I also thank them for their engagement with the Oireachtas joint committee, which benefited from the evidence not only of the Department but of many stakeholders, political parties, political activists, people from non-governmental organisations and those involved in modern communications and social media platforms. We benefited from all of their inputs and they were very welcome.

The Bill is very important. It is designed to reinforce and protect our democracy. We have one of the oldest continuous democracies. The Bill goes to the core not only of trying to protect our democracy but to ensure that its architecture, structures and operations are sustainable and robust. I do not think at any other time our democracy has been under greater threat. The Bill is timely. It has been spoken about for a very long time, long before the Government came into office. I congratulate the Minister of State and the Government on bringing forward the Bill and for doing so in a very prompt and inclusive fashion. They have designed legislation that is intended to bring us into the next century of our democracy.

We saw how in the aftermath of the presidential election in the US there was a direct attempt to undermine democracy and deny the people the outcome of their election. Here, we had the aftermath of our most recent general election.We saw a party that did not receive anything near a majority of the vote hold mass rallies in an attempt to assert their dominance, despite the will of the people, despite the outcome of the votes and despite the fact that they were way off anything like a majority. It is, therefore, important not just for us here today, but for our children, our children's children and for our country's democracy into the future, that we get this legislation right. The Bill goes a long way to achieving that and I am very happy to support it.

I defy anybody to argue against the establishment of an independent statutory commission beyond the day-to-day of politics. That is robust and substantial, and will serve our State right into the future, regardless of who is in power or who is the flavour of the week. Its independence will be enshrined in the legislation. It will be resourced and structured to safeguard democracy and the delivery of democracy into the future.

It is important that we have a statutory authority for the research and education functions. There is also the issue of boundary reviews. In my constituency of Dublin Central in my lifetime, how many boundary reviews have there been? It is hard and it is undermining for voters. They complain about the ever-changing nature of the amendments to the boundaries. It is, therefore, important that the electoral commission will have responsibility for boundary reviews.

The register of electors has historically been administered by the local authorities. I commend everybody in the franchise section of the local authorities who have maintained our registers to date. However, those registers fall far short of what is required in a modern democracy. It is, therefore, correct that this legislation would seek to improve the registers by creating a shared, rolling register, one that will be a live, shared database. Some political organisations have attempted to do the State's job by creating and operating their own database outside the State. They have combined not just the register of electors but the marked register of electors. This is privileged information. I ask Members to think of this. When people go to vote, there is a privilege in having an opportunity to vote, but one of the things they expect is the privacy of their vote. They do not expect that information to be taken, combined, shared and hosted in another jurisdiction but that is what has been done. That is how our registers have been abused. Those are facts. It is welcome that this legislation will tackle that issue and will ensure that the State is responsible, not just for compiling but for the operation and the maintenance of our registers. They will do that on a continuous basis. The registers will also encourage pre-registration for younger voters. It will create for the first time the ability for homeless people to be registered.

I would like the Bill to also deal with personation, though, which is an important issue. It is a real weakness, and it is risk to our democracy. The commission should have the power to appoint independent personation officers in each polling station and they should be charged with ensuring that no personation is taking place. It should be a severe offence to attempt to undermine our democracy by personating another voter.

Political advertising and fundraising are also two important elements of the legislation and I look forward to further debates on them with the Minister of State. Political parties that operate solely within this State rely on fundraising that is accessible to people who take an interest in their communities, who want to make a contribution and who want to support the ideals and the values that they subscribe to and that those who represent them subscribe to. I welcome the fact that fundraising ability is at the figure of €10. This amount will make it accessible to almost every citizen in our society.

There is also the issue of regulation of online political advertising. The social media platforms themselves told us on the record of the House that truth does not matter. It is not their business. They do not care. They are not interested in the veracity of the information, the messages or the political propaganda that is posted, shared or promoted on their sites. It is important for our democracy that we ensure there is regulation of all social media platforms, all political messaging and all political advertising, so that there is at least some modicum of honesty in that.