The Minister for the Environment has admitted that the electoral register is inaccurate and out of date in many respects, and has called on local authorities to make the maximum effort to improve it. Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports
Dick Roche told the Dáil yesterday that the register suggests there are 300,000 more people eligible to vote than there are people of voting age in the State. "The quality of the register is not satisfactory . . . Action is required and we are taking action."
He said he would consider using census enumerators who are currently gathering completed census forms to help improve the register.
He made his remarks while rejecting a Labour Party proposal to appoint an electoral registration commissioner to ensure the register was accurate in the future.
He dismissed this concept as a "quango" which would not be accountable through Ministers to the Dáil. "These proposals are unworkable," he said.
Earlier Labour's environment spokesman Éamon Gilmore described the register as "a shambles". He quoted research suggesting the register could be wrong by as many as 800,000 names, as opposed to the 300,000 suggested by Mr Roche.
Despite growing concern over the capacity for voting fraud due to the inaccuracies in the register, Mr Roche said it was "not practical to talk about radical change in electoral registration over a short period and in the lead-in to an election".
He was open to considering longer-term options, but his immediate concern was the draft register for 2007/08, on which the next general election would be held, and which must be published by November 1st.
Mr Roche said local authorities had recently been given regular access to electronic files linked with the General Register Office, containing information on deaths in their areas. This would allow for the more speedy and efficient deletion of the names of deceased persons from the register.
He said the Government was calling on local authorities, who are responsible for the register in their own areas, to make a concerted effort to improve it. The Government was giving them "updated and consolidated guidance" on how to do this, he said.
It would consider using census enumerators and others to help prepare the next register; set up the new arrangements to delete the names of the deceased; give additional money to local authorities for the purpose; set up an information campaign; and make an early start on the compilation of the 2007/2008 register.