Lorraine Clifford-Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabh mo leithscéal. It was really significant to have six Members of this House contesting the elections to the European Parliament. In addition, a former Member of the House, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, was successful. When I was first elected in 2016, I learned a lot from him. It was fantastic to see him succeeding. I commend everybody who put their name forward, whether they were successful or unsuccessful, in both the European Parliament elections and the local authority elections. Our democracy depends on people putting their names forward and putting their ideas before the public. Whether they win or lose, they have contributed to the democratic process.

Senator Fitzpatrick referred to the nature restoration law and the important framework that was agreed on in Brussels. She also mentioned the fifth-year students, Alecia and Alison, from St. Dominic's College, Cabra, who are representing Ireland in the NASA/NSS Ames Space Settlement Contest. It is absolutely fantastic to see the success of young women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM. It is a really significant achievement for the girls themselves, for their school and for other young Irish girls across the country who see their amazing success in the NASA contest. I commend them on it.

Senator Conway raised the need for a long-term plan for the Ukrainian colleagues and friends who have joined us in Ireland since the outbreak of war in their country. I agree that we need a long-term plan. It is not fair on the people who have settled into communities, made friends, started jobs and are contributing to society to face being moved on at a moment's notice. I support the Senator's call for a debate on the issue.

Senator Keogan raised the important issue of the 60,000 spoiled ballots in the recent elections. That number is really shocking. The low turnout is also of concern. We have work to do in schools and in bringing forward a public awareness campaign about how our electoral system works, how the single transferable vote works and how to fill out a ballot paper. We need to encourage people to make their voices heard.As we saw, a number of contests were marginally won and lost, so everybody should be encouraged to vote. The online system to register to vote was a really important step forward but there have been a number of issues with it. A constituent of mine raised this with me. He updated his details online, having moved house, and put in his eircode but, because the housing estate had a similar name to that of a housing estate elsewhere in Dublin, the local authority registered him at the latter address, even though he had supplied the correct address and its eircode. Remarkably, the local authority encouraged him to vote under an address at which he had never lived and in an area with which he had no connection, which was really shocking. That man was disenfranchised because of a fault in the system. The Electoral Commission has a lot of work to do there. If we could have a system of looking into the simplification of the ballot paper and education for the public, it would be really welcomed.