Madam, - As the person responsible for maintaining "an accurate register, so far as may be practicable" (Seanad Electoral (University Members) Act, 1937) in respect of the National University of Ireland, I take issue with Mark Hennessy's reference to the NUI Seanad Éireann Register (June 26th) as "inaccurate and long since out of date".
By law, the NUI Seanad Éireann Register is revised annually and NUI expends significant resources on its maintenance and updating.
Registration claim forms are supplied to all the NUI institutions for issue to graduates on graduation. Claim forms are also available, on request, at any time and may be downloaded from the NUI website (www.nui.ie). Records may be updated at any time. All valid claims received up to and including February 26th each year are included in the revised register which appears annually on June 1st.
In 2007 alone, apart from new graduates, some 4,000 graduates have been added to the register as a result of the revision process and thousands of addresses have been updated. Earlier, following a mailshot to all graduates in 2005, it was possible to remove some 8,000 obsolete records from the register.
The accuracy of the register is highly dependent on information provided by individual graduates, or their families, or the members of the public who return incorrectly addressed ballot papers at election time. In addition, NUI receives information from the records/alumni offices of the NUI institutions. NUI uses all these sources in revising its register and removes graduates from the register only where there is evidence to support their removal.
The 2007 NUI Seanad Éireann Register contains some 103,000 names, making it the largest electoral register in the country. Every reasonable effort is made by NUI to update this register and maintain its accuracy and to ensure that registered graduates have the opportunity to vote.
During this period of the election, graduates whose addresses are incorrect on the current register can have ballot papers reissued to them at their correct addresses if they contact NUI (tel 01 4392424 fax 01 4392477 or e-mail elections07@nui.ie) with the following information:
• full name (forename [s] and surname) at registration;
• any other form of name used (eg, Irish, single, married etc);
• date of birth;
• NUI degree(s) and other NUI qualification(s);
• year(s) of conferring(s) and NUI institution(s) where conferred;
• previous address (for identification purposes);
• current address.
- Yours, etc,
ATTRACTA HALPIN,
Registration Officer,
National University of Ireland,
49 Merrion Square,
Dublin 2.