The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, has rejected Opposition calls for an extension to the deadline for changes to the draft electoral register.
At a special meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Mr Roche said such a move would risk the new register not being in place by its legal deadline of February 15th next.
At present, people who find they have been removed from the register as part of the €12 million review have until November 25th to contact their local authority to have their names restored.
Mr Roche said yesterday that the review had been "the most extensive every carried out".
"Councils should be commended for undertaking a mammoth task that has needed attention for years," he said.
Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party have all called for an extension to the November 25th deadline, claiming that thousands of people could have been incorrectly removed from the register.
"I feel that the whole process is rushed at this stage," Fine Gael environment spokesman Fergus O'Dowd said.
Labour's environment spokesman Éamon Gilmore said that a small amendment could be added to electoral legislation due to be passed by the Dáil tomorrow, which could extend the deadline to provide additional time to correct the register.
However, Mr Roche responded that local authorities could make individual applications for extensions to the deadline if there were compelling local reasons for extending the deadline.
In a sharp exchange, Mr Gilmore said Government inaction had resulted in the review taking place at this late stage, and that adequate time should be provided. He said no local authority manager was likely to seek an extension as the priority would be to complete the review process as quickly as possible.
"Local authorities do not see themselves as being responsible for ensuring the register is accurate," he said.
Mr Gilmore pointed to the 170,000 names deleted from the draft register because electoral register staff had been unable to obtain information on who was living at specific addresses.
He said there were many people "not plugged into" political and current affairs, who would not pick up on the registration campaign and would find out their names were removed on polling day. These were more likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds, Mr Gilmore added.
Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe said he was "deeply concerned" at the variation in the rates of deletions between different local authorities. "I don't think the public can have confidence in the register when they vary so wildly," he said.
