Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following: “ “Act of 2022” means the Electoral Reform Act 2022;”.

Amendment No. 1 is a technical amendment which defines references to the Act of 2022 as meaning the Electoral Reform Act 2022, which we propose to reference within amendments Nos. 11 to 13, inclusive, in the proposed functions given to the Electoral Commission.

Amendment No. 11 seeks to address a core issue with the Bill, which is that the provisions of section 8 of the 1937 Act relating to the register of electors are not amended by the proposed legislation. Currently, section 8 provides:

The governing body of every university which is a university constituency shall cause a register ... to be kept in accordance with this Act of the persons who are for the time being entitled to be registered as electors in such constituency.

In the case of a single six-seat constituency made up of various universities, the provision would not be workable as one would need a single register for a single constituency.

We propose that a new section 8 be inserted into the 1937 Act. The new section would provide that the Electoral Commission "shall cause a single register ... to be kept in accordance with this Act of the persons who are for the time being entitled to be registered as electors" in the university constituency. The new section would further provide:

The register of electors kept under this Act in respect of the University Constituency shall be in such form as ... [the Electoral Commission] shall, with the sanction of the Minister, direct.

We also propose, as a transitional arrangement, that both registers previously kept under the Act for the National University of Ireland constituency and the Dublin University constituency shall be deposited with the Electoral Commission and combined to form the single register of electors for the university constituency referred to in subsection (1), a register to which, of course, we would want to add.

The new section we propose mirrors the existing section 8 and would go a way towards ensuring that an election could be conducted. While we did not explicitly state this in the amendment and may return to the issue on Report Stage, we would hope that the Electoral Commission would return with the NUI head office and the Trinity academic registry not only to combine both registers but to extend the work they are already doing on local authority electoral registers to updating and revising the university constituency electoral register that we want deposited with them.

Our group has consistently called out the shameful omission of Seanad reform from the Electoral Commission's mandate. I hope this new entity, which we have sought for a long time, will have a role in overseeing the electoral processes of this House.