Madam, - Claims by the Department of the Environment that every household has been visited and leafleted in the course of updating the electoral register appear to be rather optimistic. An on-line check for my latest three addresses shows failures for all three.
I have no idea what efforts might have been made by Co Limerick - but they still have me listed at an address I left three years ago.
Co Clare seems to have done nothing in my area, on the edge of Limerick. Their website has no record of me, or even of the road that I have lived on for most of the past three years. (I tried entering every address variation that I could think of!) However, it was built only 30 years ago, so perhaps word has not reached Ennis yet.
That might also explain why I had received no leaflets, forms or visits whatsoever by November 6th.
North Tipperary has indeed leafleted. However, they have not yet listed me, although I posted them my registration form on October 15th.
Their website does not even recognise my address. I admit the estate is a new one - but do they not ask their own planning department about recent development?
May I quote (from memory) the words of Minister for the Environment Dick Roche at a recent meeting in Dublin, "Our capacity to delude ourselves about the success of our policies is only matched by our capacity for passion about sport".
Quod erat demonstrandum? - Yours, etc,
DUNCAN J MARTIN, Townsfield, Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary.