Last week the House debated the sorry state of the electoral register. It is the fundamental duty of each individual to ensure they are registered on the register of electors but, in practice, this does not happen. Over the years, this duty has been carried out for local authorities by rate collectors, now revenue collectors. The situation socially and demographically has changed utterly in the past 20 years.

The Taoiseach will be aware that newspaper reports indicate that up to 800,000 individuals may be registered inaccurately on the register of electors. Obviously this would have serious implications for those standing for election in any constituency, irrespective of party or none. Unlike the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, who has taken to blaming the local authorities for this debacle, the Trinity branch of Ógra Fianna Fáil — credit to it — was able to establish, under supervision, that 17,000 eligible voters in Dublin South-East alone are not registered. I said that the members of Ógra Fianna Fáil were supervised by academics from Trinity College. Obviously over the years, at least in some constituencies, given the way the register was compiled, Fianna Fáil people would want to have been supervised.

It appears that 15,000 people who have died or moved out of the area since 2002 are still on the register. I understand the rate collectors, now the revenue collectors, are paid on the basis of the numbers on the register, therefore, the old adage of never removing anyone from the register applies. It means it is in the interest of anyone to keep as many as possible on the register. What is the Taoiseach's estimate of the accuracy of the register? Does the Taoiseach hold the view expressed by some over the past few days that very many cases could be taken by those who are disenfranchised by not being on the register? Can the Taoiseach give an undertaking that no change to the register will take place until this fundamental issue of its accuracy is sorted out? Perhaps the Taoiseach might explain the Government's intentions in view of the failure of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to deal with the matter.

We probably all agree the issues surrounding the electoral register need to be addressed urgently. Those issues, including the over-statement of people on the register, have been around a long time. It was early in my political life when the register was properly dealt with by local authorities and the political system.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, announced a number of measures to improve the accuracy of the register and is advancing these as quickly as possible so a significant improvement will be achieved. The crucial date is 1 November, six months from now. Officials from the Minister's Department have discussed these issues with a specially convened group of county managers, which had its latest meeting yesterday. The measures include the use of census enumerators or other temporary personnel to support local authorities in preparing the next register of electors and correcting it as part of an intensive registration campaign to be conducted during the summer. The Minister is prepared to increase ring-fenced financial resources for local authorities this year to update the register. They can deal with the matter on a full-time or overtime basis. An early start will be made on the local authority register work for the next campaign. An intensive advertising campaign has been under way for the past few years and an on-the-ground campaign is now necessary.

Other initiatives announced by the Minister include new arrangements for the removal of the names of deceased persons from the register and improved online search facilities for people to check they are correctly registered. A new software package has been devised for that purpose which makes that exercise fairly simple compared to a system which, if complicated or not, was not corrected for a number of years.

Voter fraud is one of the major issues which concerns me if not everyone else. Controls at all polling stations at election time will be strengthened, with updated guidelines in the area, before the next general election. The next register will be published in draft on 1 November. These are the most practical, sensible and realistic measures we can take in this area. I assure Deputy Kenny this issue is under consideration all winter and spring, and the measures are now being well advanced by the Minister.

The Taoiseach has given an indication of something which clearly will not happen before winter and spring. He was not responsible for this situation, but as an aside, I recall in my by-election in 1975 at a school in north Mayo that "Up Fianna Fáil" was written on the roof of the school by the local presiding officer before the polling station opened.

They are still looking for him.

The polling station had to be closed for some time by the late Willie O'Brien.

It is currently the duty of the rates and Revenue collectors to collate information on those eligible to vote. It has never been a question of money but one of manpower and the physical ability to walk the footpaths and collect all the information. Is it the intention to employ extra people or to pay the Revenue collectors extra money to do this job?

Has the Taoiseach a view on the PPS system which apparently could eliminate wholesale fraud, particularly such as has occurred in Border counties in a number of elections? Does the Taoiseach agree with the view expressed by his brother, the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Ahern, that one party represented in the House has been and is actively involved in wholesale fraudulent activity in regard to the electoral register? When the Taoiseach refers to fraud in his own constituency, is that what he refers to? Will it be necessary for every person who casts a vote in the next election on the ballot paper — as distinct from the decrepit electronic machines — to produce proof of identity such as a driving licence, a passport or a public utility bill, to confirm to presiding officers or polling clerks who they are? We know the electoral register is in an appallingly inaccurate state. Will the Government see to it the necessary manpower is put in place to make it accurate, and install systems to eliminate the fraud of which the Taoiseach rightly speaks, and which could probably be a contributory factor to persons making their way into this House by illegal and unconstitutional means? Will the Taoiseach see to it this happens, rather than merely giving out about local authorities as the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has been doing? This is a fundamental, serious issue. People deserve to make their choice in an election, and while that is an individual responsibility which many thousands fail to act on, the mission statement of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government refers to development and implementation of a modern and efficient electoral system, and democratic governance and public participation in the electoral system. This is a fundamental duty.

Deputy Kenny asked a number of questions. I spoke of census enumerators or other temporary staff being used and ring-fenced resources used for overtime or weekend work. Therefore, it is obviously a matter of additional bodies to help.

Every local authority has its own system. The problem is that while people such as rate collectors and others are involved in collecting the information, there are not many of them. That is certainly true in Dublin for many years. While the campaign to get people onto the register is very active, what happens is that people never come off it. I have seen houses in my constituency where 80 people are supposedly living.

All voting for the Taoiseach.

That is very difficult since these houses are supposed to have only four or five bedrooms. There was an extraordinary voter turn-out in some of those houses in the last general election.

The only way we can tidy up this is by having census enumerators or other temporary staff doing the leg-work. It is not an easy job, since not everyone now lives in the old terraced, semi-detached or detached houses. It is difficult, and we see that the census enumerators have a more difficult battle than they had last time, certainly in Dublin and other cities, whatever about around the countryside. We are talking of additional staff — if we do not run into industrial relations problems, which I hope we will not — and the census enumerators are a good choice for the job because they have gone to courses in the winter, have undertaken practical work and have been on the ground for a number of weeks. Personally I think this is the best approach and I hope the industrial relations issues can be addressed.

Using the PPS numbers is probably better in the longer term. My other brother, alderman Maurice Ahern, has been arguing for this for years in Dublin Corporation and in the Fianna Fáil Party, and I think he is right. Using the PPS system would be a good way of addressing this but would require a good lead-in time, with modern technology.

Regarding voter fraud, strong legislation has been introduced in recent years to prevent abuses of the system, and this must be mirrored on the ground by vigilance on the part of polling staff and personation agents to ensure eligible voters can vote. The law is already there and it is a matter of presiding officers and personation agents implementing it. They must challenge people and demand information. That is important.

It is very important that the register campaign starts early. I mentioned earlier that there are approximately 30,000 deaths each year and those names should be removed from the register. Obviously if they are not and have not been, in a few years it builds up to sizeable numbers. New arrangements to delete the names of deceased persons are now in place. The new system allows for the efficient and timely deletion of the names of deceased persons from the register. There is also an on-line register search facility available for people to check if they are on the register. This provides more help to people and the Department has provided better linkage.

The Deputy asked me about my own experience of this and that of my colleagues in my constituency, which is a difficult enough one because of the number of flats and apartments in it. They tell me that it is not that people are not on the register but that nobody is taken off it. That is the difficulty. People who move on from flats and houses remain on the register because there is no check-——

The local authorities are paid according to the numbers on the register.

I accept that, and we had a similar problem years ago with the welfare offices and unemployment register offices. There is a job to be done on this and we will see what the enumerators can do in a short period on the census. It needs the same amount of time. The old job that used to be done on this, for various reasons — and this is not a criticism — has not worked and has not been effective.

I do not accept the argument that technology will solve this. I am afraid it will have to be a shank's mare exercise, which is the only way we will get a good register. We need to take on that challenge this year. Otherwise, with far too many people on the register, it is open to voter fraud.

There seems to be an enormous repository of knowledge about this in the Ahern family but the problem is——

For good reason.

Indeed, that seems to be the case since the Taoiseach entered politics. The problem is that we have a register which, according to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, could contain as many as 800,000 inaccuracies, with an electorate of approximately 2 million.

How can the Taoiseach give those answers with a straight face and tell the House he is glad there is now an urgency about this? Where is the urgency? The Minister in the House last week voted against the Labour Party Bill introduced by Deputy Gilmore and all the beauties on the backbenches followed his lead. Having voted down a Bill that provided a statutory basis for the use of third party databases, the Minister then went out and gave one of his many didactic interviews on radio in which he said that the use of third party databases would be the ideal solution and he instanced ESB bills as an example. Later in the day he had to change his view when he found there was no legislative basis for that. How can the Taoiseach conclude that this is a man who is on top of a job and who has thought about this issue any more deeply than his predecessors thought about the electronic voting machines, which have cost us €60 million? What is the basis for this?

The Taoiseach spent Easter paying homage to the founders of the State. He is now administering a State where we cannot even have the right to vote, although he admits that he provides for the dead generations to vote. How are we supposed to take this seriously?

How much money is the Taoiseach providing for the shank's mare exercise to which he has referred? How long will it take? Does he accept that he is disabled, as Taoiseach, from calling a general election on a register that is admitted by his own Minister to contain more than 500,000 inaccuracies? The Taoiseach could not call a general election in those circumstances. How soon will the exercise be ready and will it be completed in time for the production of the register on 1 November next? What happens when members of the shank's mare force arrive at an apartment in which two families are registered but nobody is at home? Do they erase them, in which case there might be a problem or do they not erase them, which also might cause a problem? Does the Taoiseach know, for example, whether it is intended to set aside the existing electoral register and start anew or simply to make additions to the current register, leaving the dead generations on it?

Has the Minister thought about any of these issues? He gives interviews and, somewhat like the Taoiseach, describes the problem. We know what the problem is. Everybody in the House knows. Deputy Roche is the Minister who, according to section 18 of the Electoral Act 1992, has a responsibility to "ensure the smooth and efficient registration of electors". That is the responsibility of the Minister, not the local authorities whom he has been blaming for the past two days. What did the Minister do when my colleague, Deputy Quinn, raised this matter a number of months ago? What did he do when the Labour Party published its Bill? What did he do when Deputy Gilmore raised the matter at successive question times? Did he ever take it seriously? What action has been taken? Does the Minister accept that the Act says he has the responsibility for the "smooth and efficient registration of electors"?

Did the Minister examine, for example, the Social Welfare Consolidation Bill going through the House? That legislation provides for the exchange of databases between certain named public bodies. Could we not in a one-line amendment to the Bill authorise access to that information for the purposes of the electoral register? Is anybody in the Department examining the possible solutions because the Taoiseach's shank's mare team certainly will not authorise him to call an autumn general election, which would be devoutly desired by most citizens at this stage?

Deputy Rabbitte seems more concerned that I might call an autumn general election and if that is his concern, I will not. The legislation is clear on this issue. I am always amused when somebody in the House comes up with a new issue that has been around for years and says it is terrible. Deputy Rabbitte knows how the system operates. The Electoral Acts, over the years, have given the power to Ministers which has been delegated to local authorities. That is the way it has always been. I could ask Deputy Rabbitte, since his party controls many councils, what they have been doing in recent years in this regard.

On a point of order, a Cheann Comhairle——

They have not even debated these issues.

The Deputy cannot raise a point of order during Leader's Questions.

No councils are controlled by the Labour Party.

There never will be——

It is a myth.

——and long may it continue.

Deputy Rabbitte listed his complaints about the register. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, has actively tried to improve the register. The best way is to get people to check the register. The best way of doing that, as was the case with the census, is by putting people on the street to do it. We can have any number of bland ideas about this number, that number, social welfare consolidation and the rest of it, but most of us who have been Members for some time and involved in general elections know that the only way to correct the register and get it right is if local authority officials or political activists go out and send back information to be checked. That is how the system has worked since the foundation of the State. There will not be any other system. That is what the enumerators are doing in the census.

Over recent months Deputy Rabbitte and his colleagues have been applying pressure, and rightly so, for the Government to look seriously at the question of using the census enumerators, on the back of the census, to do this job. That has been their strategy over recent weeks but they seem to have gone off that idea for some reason. Is it because they think it might work?

No, it is because the census is over.

It is over now.

The Taoiseach, without interruption, please.

The census people made it absolutely clear they would not do the two together.

The Taoiseach could have instructed them.

They made it absolutely clear they would not do the two together.

The Taoiseach could have instructed them. They are answerable to the Government.

I ask Deputy Quinn to allow the Taoiseach to continue without interruption.

They made it absolutely clear that they could not, and would not, do the two jobs together.

We must be serious about this, which I thought Deputy Kenny was, although I have grave reservations as to whether Deputy Rabbitte is.

Looking back over several elections, there were always between 300,000 and 400,000 additional people on the register. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, is making a genuine effort and has moved on the issues of errors in the register, areas not registered properly and data not being dealt with properly in conjunction with local authorities who are the front line people in this matter. He is giving them the resources to improve the register for next autumn and winter. It is a big task and it is no good making the issues simplistic.

The importance of local authorities' cross-checking the register with other databases available to them has been highlighted. It is not the case that the Minister pulled back. He made clear what he believed could be dealt with and explored in databases. For those really interested in this, the Minister's efforts are more likely to get us a better register by 15 February of next year than any register we have had during the past 15 years. He should be supported.

I have not heard any answers to my questions to the Taoiseach. When will this blitz start? When will it finish? How much money is being allocated to it? Will the old register be refurbished or will we start anew? How does the Taoiseach propose that the task force will have access to gated communities? Has any thinking been done on any of these issues?

It is true that Deputy Quinn suggested that the enumerators would be sent out with the census in one hand and a registration form in the other. It is true that now, on May 3, we have changed our position because the census was on 23 April and there would be no point in persisting with that solution. We have new solutions and we set them out in the Bill Deputy Gilmore introduced last week and which the Minister blustered down.

What are the answers to the questions I raised? What is wrong with bringing legislation before the House to enable the CSO to transfer the box on the census form with the name and address to an electoral register?

Has Deputy Cullen finished speaking? Perhaps we could provide a box in the electronic voting machines for it.

All we need is the name, address and nationality. That does not break any confidentiality. There is no legal prohibition, or right to withhold consent, to being registered as an elector. The CSO has the best and most up-to-date information. Can we provide for that much to be transferred? None of the private data about income, earnings or family size will be transferred.

The Government seems to be making it up as it goes along, and Ministers come into the House claiming credit for whatever rhyme-off of statistics their back-up staff give them on a particular day. However, whenever anything goes wrong or when blame must be taken, they blame someone else. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, blamed the local authorities all weekend. The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, blames the HSE when one tries to find out about accident and emergency departments. When we find out the Dublin Port tunnel will spue traffic into the left lane and worsen the traffic from Whitehall out, the National Roads Authority or the Port tunnel company will be to blame. There is never blame on the Government benches when something goes wrong.

Will the Taoiseach answer the questions I raised? How much money is allocated? When will it start and finish? Will it be a new register? Will it be reliable?

I will not go back over the points I already made. Deputy Rabbitte understands that when we put forward the issue of the census enumerators taking the two forms together — a suggestion with which I had no difficulty — they stated they were governed by separate legislation, the time in which it was put to them was inadequate as the census form was a separate operation for which they had done their field work and planning for eight or nine months, and given the confidentiality aspect, they had enough in one task. That solution was out.

We then suggested that if the census enumerators who had gone through all of this could be used, and if we overcome some IR difficulties which I hope we can, they would be ideal. Whatever number of them it takes would have to be paid to do it. It is a good suggestion and does not move away from the suggestion made by Deputy Quinn, which I thought was good and practical. I followed it up immediately when it was made. I cannot see any other practical way of doing it.

It will start as soon as possible but it would likely be a September or October job. That would seem to be best. November is the date for the draft register and then 15 February is the final date. It would also need the active engagement of local authority workers.

Is the register due on 15 November?

We cannot continue on this question all day. Deputy Rabbitte has already gone seven minutes over time.

The draft register.

The draft register is due on 15 November.

The work will be done by 1 November, but the final register is due on 15 February.

They will only start in September.

Deputy Rabbitte, we cannot continue this question all day.

The Ceann Comhairle does not have to stand for re-election.

The enumerators are tied up with their census work until mid-June or the end of June. They will not do it in July and August. I do not believe July and August would be the best months to carry it out. Deputy Rabbitte knows that would not be practical.

Work on the issue of dealing with deaths is on-going. It does not require people to call to the houses. The local authorities must step up their own efforts in this regard and the Minister has dedicated resources to do so. The issues surrounding fraud are already governed in the legislation. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, his Department and colleagues are making a genuine effort. If we can get the help of the CSO to do this we could have a far better register than the ones that in my experience we have had for the past two decades.

I welcome the Taoiseach's confirmation that the census enumerators will be further engaged during the summer months in a comprehensive exercise to upgrade and ensure the accuracy of the electoral register, something all democrats should want to see happen. If the Taoiseach or any of his brothers have information of voter fraud, they have a responsibility to report it.

I am quite sick, sore and tired of the continued slur against the party I am proud to represent by Aherns of any variety and the Kennys of this world who suggest that I and my colleagues are here by any other means than as a result——

I do not suggest that at all.

Of course the Deputy does.

I questioned the Taoiseach's brother.

They suggest that I and my colleagues are here by other means than as a result of the democratic choice of our communities and constituencies. Despite all their efforts, I assure them of one thing——

The Deputy is misleading the House.

Allow Deputy Ó Caoláin without interruption.

——perhaps even in spite of them, we will return here in even greater numbers after the next general election.

I never suggested any such thing.

He is misleading the House.

The only people who mislead the House are those who try to——

I never mentioned——

Allow Deputy Ó Caoláin to continue his question on a topical issue.

I will not take that——

We know well what Deputy Kenny peddles and what he wants to peddle. Away to Mayo with you on your bicycle and do all the peddling you want between now and the election. You will have a lot of work to do.

Deputy Ó Caoláin is making false accusations.

Allow Deputy Ó Caoláin, please.