Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try not to be as controversial as the last speaker in terms of county boundaries and breaches. I can see a lively discussion at the next Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party meeting about issues like this in relation to Athlone and other places but I take the point the Senator is making. In fairness, we have a small but important part of south Mayo in the constituency of Galway West. To be fair when I say this at district meetings within our own party they do not like it. They want to be back in Mayo and that goes for other areas as well. That is a natural affinity. They vote on the council elections in that county and they want the Dáil representation to be congruent with that. That is just part of it. I am sure there will be many submissions from south Mayo to the next constituency commission, as there was in the past in Carlow and when Leitrim was split. People have an affinity with their own county.

I welcome the Bill and the engagement by the committee in regard to this important body of work. Some issues have not been taken up, such as proof of identity when voting. When presenting to vote, a person has a polling card. Other things are required also but are they looked for? One hears stories of polling cards being bought for a pint of Guinness or for a fiver, or polling cards being handed around the place. There are elements of truth in those stories because people can go in and not be questioned about their identification. To believe folklore, this has happened for years.

On fundraising, do we really want to go down the path of other countries? In particular in the US a big part of the local representative's job is fundraising for the next election. That is unhealthy. In our party we run a fundraiser. It is an important part of the democratic process to ensure that we can finance this without resorting to seeking thousands or millions of dollars as they do in the US to run their elections.

Senator Moynihan and others talked about polling. This is a bugbear of mine since the 2011 election when I had two opinion polls published. One was published in The Sunday Independent which had me on a grandiose 15% for my would-be vote, which was wonderful if probably inflated. A week before the election I was brought down to earth quickly when one of the local newspapers published an opinion poll that put me on less than 2%, I think it was 1.4%. I ended up just getting the average of both of those polls, 7%. I was elected by 17 votes. Clearly an opinion poll can be published in that fashion a few days before an election whereby one is told one does not have a hope. What is the point? Fine Gael had four candidates running and this lad was last in the poll, and if he had not a hope why would anyone vote for him? That is very difficult. Everyone likes an underdog, or in that case the fourth underdog. That has happened in various countries where it could be argued that opinion polls have impacted on election outcomes. Perhaps a national opinion poll is fine but I have concerns about local polls. That is perhaps something we might consider.

I welcome the changes regarding the islands. I am trying to follow this exactly. They are not in the explanatory memorandum but I am trying to follow the ins and outs of them. Certainly many islanders feel very strongly about island voting on the same day as the rest of the country. There was a concern about undue delays with the ballot papers being transported to the mainland. There are attempts to change that as well.

The electoral review will be taking place based on the census figures. This is based on the population of the country and those resident on the day but not the population of electors which in my view favours certain parts of the country. It would certainly favour Dublin viz-à-vizthe west of Ireland. I have no doubt that the Minister will look at that for the forthcoming census. It is an issue that I have concerns about.