I congratulate President Catherine Connolly on her remarkable success and wish her well as Uachtarán na hÉireann. However, there has been a crisis of democracy - a huge democratic deficit in democracy - in this election. Three hundred and seventeen thousand people either spoiled their votes or voted for a withdrawn candidate. In some constituencies, the proportion of spoiled votes was north of 20%. Many boxes across the country showed that the number of spoiled votes was actually higher than the number of votes received by the candidate who came second. This was not an accident, nor was it the result of apathy. This was frustration. These people went to their ballot papers to voice their frustration over the huge deficit reflected there. The Tánaiste himself dictated to his councillors so as to prevent independent voices and members of smaller parties from gaining access to the nomination paper. The number of spoiled ballot papers in 2025 was almost as high as the combined vote for the Social Democrats, the Labour Party and the Green Party. That is the level we are talking about. It points to the biggest democratic deficit in the history of the State. In fact, the biggest democratic deficit in the history of European elections was registered here last month, yet nothing has been done about it.

Aontú has already introduced a Bill seeking to reduce the threshold. What have we and the Government learned from what has happened? What is the Government going to do to reduce the threshold to ensure rich and vibrant democracy in future presidential elections?

I am not going to comment on our President, because we do not do that in this House, other than to congratulate her on her election and wish her well. I also thank all of those involved in the inauguration this week. It was a moment of immense pride in our country. We have had only ten Presidents. The inauguration was done very well. We have our elections, we have our ruaille buaille and then we pull together as a country. We all send every best wish for strength, resilience and joy to our President. I thank the Defence Forces, the Garda, the ushers and everybody involved in making the inauguration such a memorable occasion for our country.

I reject out of hand the diktat comment but I do not have time to get into it now. I wish we had the overall majorities on local authorities that the Deputy thinks we have. There are six Fine Gael councillors out of over 30 on Kerry County Council, for example. Our councillors decided, through our democratic structures, how they wished to engage.

The Deputy is not wrong, however, on the issue of spoiled votes. Just to be clear, I do not ignore that. People got in their cars, got on their bikes or walked to turn up at their polling stations - they did not sit on the couch - and they took a decision to spoil their votes, which is a democratic act that they had every right to do.

I do not think there is one homogenous reason people did it, but people found the field narrower than they expected. Quite frankly, it was narrower than I expected. We are happy to reflect and engage on that. We will not have another presidential election for another seven years. Aontú has put forward some proposals. If anything were to be done in this space, it would require Government and Opposition support. Some of Aontú's suggestions are interesting and I am happy to constructively engage in that regard.