In a U-turn that follows mounting pressure from the Opposition, Fianna Fáil backbenchers and local authorities, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche last night announced an extension of the deadline for the completion of the electoral register.
The decision came as it emerged that thousands of voters who were removed from the register would have to have their names forwarded to an electoral "revision" court before they could be formally returned to the register next year.
Despite insisting 24 hours earlier that no extensions would be given, Mr Roche said yesterday he would extend by two weeks the date for the public to return their register correction forms, from November 25th to December 9th.
He will also give local authorities more time to complete their work on the register, which they now have to finalise by December 29th.
Mr Roche's decision follows requests from three local authorities - Monaghan, Clare and Kildare county councils - for an extension of the deadline.
Mr Roche said he had been advised by the Attorney General that it would not be possible to grant an extension by statutory order. Instead, he said, a change in primary legislation was required, and he would publish an emergency amendment to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 2006, to this end next week.
Earlier this month it emerged that some 502,000 names were deleted from the old electoral register and 376,000 new names added as part of a €12 million updating exercise. A public information campaign advised people they had until this Saturday, November 25th, to correct the draft register. A new campaign advising of the extension is now to take place.
There is emerging evidence that thousands of legitimate voters may have been inadvertently removed from the register as they failed to respond to warning letters and notices posted through their letter boxes in recent months.
Dublin City Council estimates that up to 20,000 names may be added to the draft register, while Kildare County Council has already received 3,000 written requests from people wishing to be added to the draft register.
Yesterday the Department of the Environment confirmed that names could not be automatically added to the draft register and would instead have to go before an electoral "revision" court headed by the local county registrar.
Electoral guidelines stipulate that a request to be added to the draft register must be made in writing to a local authority. Local authority guidelines advise that any request "will be considered and decided on by the county registrar".
County registrars have the right to require additional information from an applicant. Local authority officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said such requests were extremely rare and that the courts would be likely to add names to the draft register based on advice from local councils.
The extension follows failed attempts by local authorities to publish lists of proposed deletions from the electoral register. It is understood they were advised in recent days that such a move could contravene data protection legislation.
Mr Roche conceded at a special meeting of the Dáil Environment Committee last week that the updating process had led to "inadvertent deletions", but he insisted at the time that it would not be "prudent" to grant a general extension to the deadline.
Yesterday he briefed the Cabinet and the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on the proposed extension and said afterwards he had received requests from three county councils seeking more time to complete their work. He said rather than confine extensions to local authorities that requested them, he had decided to allow more time to every local authority.
