Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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On behalf of the committee, I welcome the chief executive of An Coimisiún Toghcháin, Mr. Art O'Leary, who is accompanied by his colleagues, Mr. Tim Carey and Mr. Brian Dawson. Today's discussion will focus on the upcoming European elections 2024, voting rights and combating disinformation. All of the witnesses are very welcome, and I thank them for joining us.

Before I begin, I will go through a note on privilege. All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with that direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I also remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in public meetings. I cannot permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to that requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members participating via Teams prior, to making their contribution, to state and confirm that they are on the grounds of Leinster House.

With that note concluded, I would like to start off by welcoming Mr. Art O'Leary and asking him to make his opening statement.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach. Chaith mé deich mbliana sona sa seomra seo nuair a bhí mé ag obair sa pharóiste seo blianta ó shin agus tá an-át has orm a bheith ar ais arís don chruinniú tábhachtach seo. I thank the Chair. I spent ten happy years in this room when I worked in this parish, and it is a great privilege and pleasure to be back for this important meeting.

I am joined today by my colleagues, Tim Carey, head of electoral operations, and Brian Dawson, head of communications. This is the first appearance before this committee by An Coimisiún Toghcháin, Ireland’s independent electoral commission but members will no doubt be aware of the role we have already played in shaping the forthcoming European Parliament elections with the revision of the constituency boundaries to accommodate an additional seat for Ireland. Some 14 MEPs are due to be elected in this country in 107 days' time, so today’s meeting is a timely one.

As a relatively new independent public body, I will, first, take a moment to outline our work and functions. An Coimisiún Toghcháin has taken on a range of pre-existing electoral functions, along with new functions as set out in the Electoral Reform Act 2022. The pre-existing functions include the carrying out of constituency reviews for local, Dáil and European Parliament elections; the registration of Ireland’s political parties; and the role and work on referendums previously held by the Referendum Commission. Our newly-established functions include the conduct of research and provision of advice on electoral policy and procedure; building awareness of our democratic processes through education, information and public engagement; and oversight of Ireland’s electoral register. We also have functions associated with the regulation of political advertising online and online misinformation and disinformation during election campaign periods. As legislators, members will already be aware that in the context of today’s discussion, these functions, set out in Parts 4 and 5 of our founding legislation, have not yet been commenced. Significantly, we have also been tasked after every electoral event to prepare an independent report on how those events were administered.

The democratic mandate of the European Union, delivered largely through its directly elected Parliament, is a pillar which must hold the weight of a continent. Many Irish figures across the political spectrum and in the public service have played key roles in the European Union since our accession in the early 1970s. Following his sad passing recently, much has been spoken about former Taoiseach, John Bruton’s commitment to the EU and its institutions. After the 2008 Lisbon vote, as EU Ambassador, John Bruton addressed the Joint Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Ireland’s Future in the EU. In his address he pointed out the EU’s unique democratic make-up. He stated:

Even as it stands, the European Union is a unique historical achievement, it is the only multi-state democracy in the world. The European Parliament is the world’s only directly-elected multi-national parliament. It makes legislation that is binding in all the countries whose directly elected representatives sit in the Parliament. In other international organisations, the decision-making is exclusively inter-governmental or diplomatic, rather than democratic.

Between 6 and 9 June, across the EU’s member states, EU citizens will come together to ballot boxes of various designs; to ballot papers of various languages, and to electoral systems using numerous variations of PR, but for one shared goal - to elect the 720 MEPs who will be their public representatives. Here in Ireland, to be eligible to vote in European elections, you must be a citizen of the European Union, be 18 years of age and be listed in the register of electors.

It is internationally accepted that disinformation and manipulative online behaviour pose a potential threat to electoral integrity, including, for example, by the United Nations, the European Union, global technology companies and leading international advocates for democracy. In addition, comparative international research commissioned by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, International IDEA, on online disinformation during national elections between 2016 and 2021 identified electoral disinformation in 92% of 53 countries studied. Although Ireland was not a specific focus of this particular research, there is no reason to think Ireland would be uniquely exempt from such activity. To give a flavour of what can be involved here, it is not always as technical as AI or hacking. International IDEA cites one case in Germany where some voters were told that they could win a prize if they wrote their name on the ballot paper.

As I mentioned earlier, An Coimisiún does not currently have legislative or regulatory powers in relation to online electoral disinformation and misinformation. However, as the independent electoral commission and a trusted source of information during elections and referendums, we are committed to ensuring that voters are well informed about how to exercise their democratic vote. We want to encourage them to use their vote and ensure their voice is heard whether in referendums or elections. Last week, we launched a public information campaign that seeks to engage with people directly on some of the platforms where the quality of information about elections is most contested. What we are saying to people is simple: there is one day each year when each of us questions the headlines and is critical of everything we hear, read and see, and that day is April Fool's Day.

To fight false information during election campaigns, we need to treat every day like it is 1 April, to question headlines, and to ask ourselves: who is telling me this? How do I know it is true? Are there other trusted sources? Attempts to distract, dissuade and disorientate voters are as old as democracy itself but the methods to do so are growing in their sophistication and complexity. Our watchword must be vigilance, and each of us should be our own fact-checkers. An coimisiún is here to help during electoral periods by providing independent and factual information on the votes and electoral processes, and through our website, publications, media campaigns and other communications.

As An Coimisiún Toghcháin, we have been established to provide people with a confidence in the integrity of elections, so that they can trust every part of the electoral process from registration to result. After each and every electoral event, including the European Parliament elections, we will be publishing a detailed review of those elections. These post-election reports will document what we saw, what we did not see, how things worked well and where things did not work and need improvement. I hope that these reports will make a valuable contribution to debate on further electoral reform.

I would welcome the opportunity at that point, once our report is published, to again address this committee on its recommendations. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach, and I am happy to take questions.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary for that comprehensive opening statement. I know every member has indicated already. Before I go to Senator Keogan, who has to leave us, so I want to let her go first, I have one very specific and technical question. Mr. O'Leary alluded to it in his opening remarks, and it is fascinating me to try to get a direct answer on this. British people living in Ireland, with the reciprocal relationship that we have always had, have had the right to vote. Mr. O'Leary said in his opening remarks that only citizens of the European Union can vote. What exactly is the status of British people voting in a European election, allowing for the fact that they have never had a situation where their country was no longer a member state but yet they have fully reciprocal voting arrangements between Ireland and the UK?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I will get the Chair a direct answer on that. There are some complexities because a number of people hold dual citizenship as part of that British-Irish relationship as well. I will come back with a direct answer.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Okay, I appreciate that. Senator Keogan is up next.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank the Chair. Mr. O'Leary is very welcome. I congratulate him on his position.

I have a number of questions for Mr. O'Leary - seven in total. First, with local and European elections being held on the same day, can Mr. O'Leary outline how it is ensured that an individual votes only in the elections he or she is entitled to vote in? Second, has the Electoral Commission had difficulty in publishing information around the upcoming referenda where the wording of said referenda is so vague? Third, on the topic of disinformation, can Mr. O'Leary comment on the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin's post on X in which she stated that a woman's place is in the home? On 26 January, Ms Justice Marie Baker-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, Senator. I am going to disallow all of that. We brought in the Electoral Commission to talk about the European elections. We are not conducting a session with the Electoral Commission on the referendums.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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The Electoral Commission is essential to what information is out there in the public domain.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, Senator-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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How do we know it is going to be regulated if we are not allowed to ask those questions?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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There are forums which enable questions to be asked, but one aspect of this committee and the way the committee system works is one brings in people under the guise of talking on a particular area. The commission was invited in to talk to us about the European elections and I am afraid I am going to have to limit it to this. I facilitated-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Can I rephrase the question? I need to know what the Electoral Commission's role is in all of this. If there is misinformation being given by a particular party, what is the Electoral Commission's role in correcting that information?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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In the context of European elections, the Senator can ask that.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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How does the Electoral Commission endeavour to call out disinformation in all cases, but, specifically, in relation to disinformation being disseminated by, let us say, the Government of the day? How can individuals have confidence in the integrity of any election when Ministers have been flagged for disinformation in relation to what the particular amendments might say, in particular this-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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We are not going into amendments or into that area.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Okay. In future elections, would the claim, for instance, that Fine Gael claims to be the party of homeownership-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, Senator.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Can that be considered disinformation as this claim is false?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, Senator. You are making all types of ridiculous allegations and I am not going to-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I am looking to see what the-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I am not going to allow you.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I am looking to see what the remit-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Can I say to Senator Keogan directly as a member-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Yes.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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You asked to go first.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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Yes, I did.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I facilitated that-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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That is correct. Thank you very much for that.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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-----and it is very disappointing that you then would use up your time-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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We need to find out what the role of the Electoral Commission is in future elections.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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You are using up your time by asking-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Senator Chambers wants to make a point.

Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail)
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We all want to ask questions of Mr. O'Leary. I am conscious that previously a member at another committee was not permitted to ask a question that people may or may not have liked or whatever. The member is entitled to ask questions, granted not on the referendums on 8 March, which is what the question was related to, but, more generally, around misinformation and disinformation.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Correct.

Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail)
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To protect the committee, and that we are seen to be facilitating questions, whether we like them or not, I would not want that-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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That is censorship.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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The role of the Chair is to protect the integrity of the committee. Specifically, when people are invited into the committee for the purpose of answering questions on a particular area, one concentrates and focuses on that area. Out of respect for other committees, we do not go into other areas that are outside our remit. That is why I would prefer if general questions in relation to information and misinformation were phrased by asking the commission about its role-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I will try my best to phrase them in a way that is appropriate to you, Chair.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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-----rather than sneaking us into a political dimension.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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How can we be assured that the Electoral Commission will not, in practice, establish a caste system where Ministers and their cronies in the mainstream media will be free to tell untruths or misinformation while minority viewpoints will be censored? Those are my questions to Mr. O'Leary. I hope he will ask them because the Electoral Commission will play an important role in democracy in this country. I do not underestimate that. I want to make sure Mr. O'Leary has democracy in the palm of his hand and that he is going to mind that democracy and guard it with his life.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I thank the Senator. There is a lot of ground to cover there. The Senator's first question was about different types of elections and different types of entitlements. There are not only local and European Parliament elections in June. We will also have a referendum on the patent court as well. For the people of Limerick, they will also be electing a directly-elected mayor. There are quite sophisticated electoral registers in each polling station which will ensure that people will get the correct ballot papers when they are entitled to vote. Anyone ordinarily resident in the country is entitled to vote in the local elections but European citizens only are entitled to vote in the European elections. This has happened on a number of occasions in the past. We are confident that the systems there are okay but it is something we will keep an eye on.

On the misinformation-disinformation issue, as I mentioned in my opening statement, there are extensive powers in the Electoral Reform Act 2022 in relation to misinformation and disinformation. These have not yet been commenced by the Minister and the Electoral Commission currently has no regulatory, investigative or sanctioning powers in the area of misinformation- and disinformation. What we have is the obligation to inform citizens about the elections.

I will split this in two. One is electoral process information. The example that I used was people in Germany being encouraged to write their names on the ballot paper. Many people wrote their names on a ballot paper because they thought they would be entered into a raffle and that they would win a prize. On electoral process information, if somebody came out and said that the referendums in March are on 9 March, we would simply correct that and say, "No, they are on 8 March". Electoral process information is slightly different because it tends to be a bit more black and white.

We are very conscious of the right to freedom of expression in this country and this is a constitutional right, but we are also conscious that we have an obligation that our citizens and the electorate have the right to be informed properly as well. This is a right that has to be balanced. I suspect the conversations going on between Government and the EU on the nature of the powers in Parts 4 and 5 are the reason for the delay in commencing this and that it is an attempt to strike that balance in line with the Digital Services Act as well, but I could not disagree with the Senator in relation to the importance of this issue.

As I mentioned in the opening statement, the way that misinformation-disinformation is leaked into the environment now is becoming increasingly sophisticated and it is increasingly complex. We have to be ready to be able to deal with that. We are building an organisation right now from scratch, which is versatile, flexible, responsive and aware of developments in the area. These are not features that many State bodies are often accused of but the challenge for us is to be able to do that.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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The Digital Services Act will not be implemented until May this year.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

The Digital Services Act is-----

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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It was signed by the Government last week.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Correct.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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With regard to the European Union, is it May this year?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Coimisiún na Meán has already taken over responsibility for the wider misinformation and disinformation online from last week. Our focus here entirely is on election campaigns during election periods and that is what is envisaged by the Act. It is only electoral information.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I welcome Mr. O'Leary back to his old bailiwick, where he was a distinguished public servant, and also his colleagues. For clarity, the Electoral Commission is a brand new organisation. Can Mr. O'Leary give us an indication of the Electoral Commission's current staffing and the allocation of those staff to the various tasks? It seems that under the Act, the Electoral Commission has a myriad of tasks and I wonder how many people are working on each.

The focus of our debate today is obviously ensuring the integrity of the upcoming European elections, in particular. As the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs, that is our job. We have already had discussions in Europe with colleagues there in relation to this.

Mr. O'Leary stated that sections to the Act that are germane to our discussions, Parts 4 and 5, have not been commenced yet. That is something we can take up directly with the Minister. The committee might ask the Minister if these sections will be commenced in advance of the upcoming European Elections and I propose we discuss it later.

It seems a lot is put back on the individual to do the fact-checking. My experience across Europe and elsewhere is that a lot of people now go in search of "facts" that compound their own prejudices and disseminate those as facts if they can find any source, reliable or otherwise, to underscore that. Is it An Coimisiún Toghcháin's role or Coimisiún na Meán's role to say, "This is a falsehood", during the course of an election? I know broadcasters sometimes do fact-checking of political statements and so on but it really is important in the current context because I am afraid both domestic and foreign actors have interfered with other elections. We would be naive in the extreme to believe we will be immune from that. I have no doubt we already have been impacted by that.

Another question I have is around what sort of liaison An Coimisiún Toghcháin has with like-minded organisations in other European countries so that there is a pan-European approach to misinformation or the undermining of viewpoints and policies in the course of an election.

My final question is about the experience we saw emerge after the Brexit referendum, namely, the role of Cambridge Analytica in harvesting data and targeting particular subsets of the electorate for misinformation. Does An Coimisiún Toghcháin have any role in combatting that sort of organised manipulation of public data, that is, the electoral register?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I thank the Deputy for his kind words about my return. Approximately 25 people are working in the organisation at the moment. It is built into three sections: electoral operations; electoral integrity; and corporate services. It is approximately a third, a third and a third at the moment. The ambition is that An Coimisiún Toghcháin will be twice that size by the end of the year, so we will have an organisation of approximately 50 people. As I mentioned earlier, we are building an organisation that is flexible and we will go where the work goes. During referendum time-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Excuse me, I do not mean to interrupt but does An Coimisiún Toghcháin see itself as being able to bring in expertise on a contractual basis to deal with some of the issues that are immediate?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, these are full-time equivalents, permanent civil servants. We also have quite a sizeable budget in order to be able to contract in the expertise the Deputy spoke about because some of these skills are not generally available within the public service. We have to recognise that digital skills and people who work in areas outside of our normal working life is something we would have to contract in as specialist areas. An Coimisiún Toghcháin will do that as the need arises and as we get the powers themselves. In this organisation, we go where the work goes and are flexible enough. Our people in HR and accounts will all be in polling stations on 8 March with checklists looking at the way the election is being conducted.

In Mr. Carey's area, we will have electoral events over the next 20 months. There will be up to a dozen events perhaps, so we will all be very busy. We are happy we have sufficient resources to be able to do the job we have. I have been assured that where something arises, where we need to do more or give it an extra push, we will make a case for that as well.

After every electoral event, we will do a post-electoral event review to work out what went well and what did not go well. Our research programme, which will be very exciting this year, will look at a number of features of our electoral system and the electoral process which might lead us in a different direction. This is our starting point - 50 people. Who knows where we will be in a couple of years' time.

I mentioned individual fact-checking because it was part of our current campaign. That is only one part of this particular jigsaw. An Coimisiún Toghcháin has a huge role in monitoring, correcting, labelling and responding to any misinformation or disinformation it sees particularly around electoral process information. Such as, such and such a polling station has burned down or winning a prize if you write your name on a ballot paper. This kind of stuff is easily corrected. Media literacy is important here to explain to people about trusted sources of information but we also have a big job to do.

We have the collaboration of a number of stakeholders in this country as well. We have access to our colleagues in Coimisiún na Meán, the Data Protection Commission, the Department of housing and the Department of the Taoiseach. The job of all of these Department's is to support us in our job of dealing with misinformation or disinformation or any interference in the electoral process.

On the Deputy's wider question about networks, An Coimisiún Toghcháin is plugged into so many networks in the EU and further afield because this is a challenge, the solution to which will not be found in this country. It will be people, such as people in our organisation, talking to other election management bodies. We have a close relationship with the UK, Australia, Canada, with many other English-speaking countries and with all our EU networks. That works very well because everyone is learning. Every day is a school day and we get the benefit of that learning at many of these meetings and networks.

On the issue of regulatory powers, I have always said that our job is to work with social media companies in order to be able to manage the flow of misinformation and disinformation and it would be a sad day if I ever got to exercise any of the powers in Part 5 of the Act. If I have to go to the High Court to instruct a social media company to take down or remove a post or to take somebody from the platform, then we have lost.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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It has already commenced.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

In the white hot heat of a general election campaign, this is the idea of an instant response. We have met all the social media companies and we have a good working relationship. We have safe channels into them in case we need to get access to them in a hurry. I am encouraged by the level of responsibility they have shown with regard to how they will deal with that. They are very conscious that their platforms are a place where quite serious damage can be done to democracy. I have been pleased by the attitude and respect they have shown to An Coimisiún Toghcháin and to the process as part of that conversation.

On Cambridge Analytica, the information, the data and all of that detail, Part 4 of the Act, as the Deputy knows, is about online political advertising. This is all about transparency in political advertising. When somebody places an advertisement on a platform, the Act deals with who is paying for the advertisement.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There is direct mailing for people on the register.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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And data mining.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There is data mining first and then direct mailing to a subset.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, that will also be part of the transparency. It must be disclosed in a label on the post, to say this is targeted at 25-year-olds or 30-year-olds living in Tallaght or wherever it is. It is all about the transparency. This information is currently there. Social media companies need to work out how best to deliver this. Some social media companies have said they will not get involved in political advertising because of the administrative burden that might come with it. Transparency is what is important here. This information is already there. It is all about making it available to people, so that when they see something, such as a post or an advertisement, they will know who paid for it, who benefits from it, who it is targeted at, etc. That can only be good for democracy.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary. Deputy Ó Murchú is next.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat. Mr. O'Leary is very welcome back and I am sure he has many stories that are probably far more interesting. We will wait until we go into private session.

That is a different kettle of fish, however. It is vital that we have the infrastructure to be able to deal with the world we are now in, of cyberthreats, hybrid threats and Cambridge Analytica, to which Deputy Howlin referred, and that type of data analysis and data mining and then advertising. In fairness, I would have asked the same question as the Deputy regarding engagement with Coimisiún na Meán. In some elements, this is an impossible job. Mr. O'Leary has dealt with some of that. Beyond that, it is about the engagement with big tech. Mr. O'Leary indicated that has been relatively positive. Which companies has An Coimisiún Toghcháin spoken to and dealt with? Are there particular companies with which it has not engaged? Have some companies been less forthcoming than others? I get the difference between misinformation and disinformation. We have entered a world where anyone can post whatever has entered their head at 12 o'clock at night after a couple of bottles of beer, possibly a couple of bottles of wine.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Coffee is fairly bad as well.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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So I hear. That can happen. There are other players, however, that are less benign. They may be state actors or non-state actors. They may be absolutely disorganised but there may be many of them. That is a problem. The engagement of an coimisiún regarding how the algorithms work is of importance. We are all aware of the issue of reinforcement. When a person sees a particular issue online, he or she suddenly gets tonnes of the same content. Watching a Donald Trump video will bring you straight to Ben Shapiro and whatever else and you will end up in a particular place. Some of it is disturbing.

There are facts that are facts, and that is easy. If I say the wall is red when it is obviously not red, that can easily be dealt with, but there is an awful lot of political messaging and whatever that is not as clear-cut as that. Much of this relates to Coimisiún na Meán. It is getting into the area of flaggers and the fact that what one person considers disinformation, another person may consider freedom of speech. We know there are varying political opinions. That does not impact on An Coimisiún Toghcháin, but it is a significant body of work. We have all seen the impact. Mr. O'Leary referred to the percentages relating to misinformation and disinformation that is used and abused in elections. It is about creating an infrastructure that is able to deal with this. Mr. O'Leary made the best point, which is that everybody should carry out their own analysis, remove all unnecessary context and whatever else, deal with every issue and look at it in a completely comprehensive way. That does not always happen, however. People have a particular view and, in this day and age, what they look for and get is reinforcement of that view, be it right, wrong or absolutely crazy. It is very difficult to deal with that. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong in terms of information, but there is a lot that falls outside that.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

There is a short answer to the Deputy's first question and probably a longer answer to the others. We have met with Meta, X, TikTok and Google, as well as Technology Ireland, which is the IBEC umbrella group representing all the technology companies in Ireland. Meta does Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We have met X, formerly known as Twitter. We have also met TikTok.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. O'Leary has also met with the umbrella group.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Technology Ireland, yes. It is a group established under the auspices of IBEC that represents the full spectrum of technology companies in this country. These meetings are not easy for any of us as we have particular requirements, but I am very happy with the level of engagement.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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What did Mr. O'Leary ask the companies and what have the companies offered?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I asked them to outline their plans and arrangements for dealing with misinformation and disinformation on the platform in an electoral context. They all laid out their procedures and processes, including how they engage and investigate allegations of misinformation and disinformation. I also asked for a safe, clean and quick passage into the organisations if we need to be able to do something at speed .

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, but I will not allow a back-and-forth conversation as there are many other Deputies and Senators waiting to come in. I ask Mr. O'Leary to complete his answer. If Ruairí - Deputy Ó Murchú, my apologies - wishes to come back in on a subsequent round, I will facilitate that.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I have been called worse, a Chathaoirligh.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

The Deputy referred to the kinds of actors that might be involved in this space. Obviously, misinformation and disinformation can be domestic or foreign and from state or non-state actors. We need to be cautious and expect that the interference can come from anywhere. In the white-hot heat of a general election campaign, where hours and minutes matter, we do not want to spend too much time wondering about from where certain information came. The job is to deal with the problem. It may be for others, possibly the Garda or other organisations, to deal with from where the problem came and who was behind it.

We have spoken with the tech companies about the issue of algorithms. Interestingly, if an issue is unclear and being investigated for misinformation and disinformation, they can reset the algorithms to ensure the post does not appear on people's timelines, or it appears so far down as to be unreadable and so on. There are many ways of dealing with this issue prior to a determination being made.

The Deputy's final question related to the tension or balance between the right to freedom of expression and people's right to get proper black-and-white information that is correct. This is difficult for us. Every candidate in a general election is trying to manipulate public opinion in order to persuade people to vote for him or her. When I mention this in a political environment, every politician tells me it is not them we are talking about; we are talking about the bad guys. The challenge is to establish who are the malign actors in this space. We do not wish to have a chilling impact on public commentary. In a normal election campaign, things are said and people take a view on information which is presented in a way that best suits the speaker's argument.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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That is happening this week.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

We do not wish to be in the middle of those arguments. To be honest, Irish people are sophisticated enough to be able to weigh up all the perspectives and, having heard all the arguments, made a decision on the way they are going to vote. The thing that worries me most is electoral process misinformation. This may include suggestions such as the electoral register being rigged in order that a person's vote will not count as all those ballot boxes will be taken away and put in the boot of a car, or that voters must write on the ballot paper and so on. That is the area where we can make a real impact. It tends to be much more black and white. To answer the Deputy's question, I suspect that is the area in which we will spend most of our time, in the initial stages anyway, pending our experience.

Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary for his presentation and his commitment to the difficult job ahead of him. Much has been said. With regard to the role of an coimisiún in informing the public, we can probably accept that even if we were to see the end of X, which would be lovely, something else that is probably much worse would replace it. We will not be able to stop people trying to disrupt the electoral process or undermine democracy. That is a challenge we have to work with. Much of the work of an coimisiún should relate to informing the public. I refer to the messaging to treat every day as if it is April Fool's Day. That is a short and snappy message with good marketing and branding and whatever you want to call it. That kind of messaging gets people to think critically and analyse everything they see. The commission should also promote going to trusted news sources. That is a somewhat subjective term. What is trusted? Every news source will make mistakes from time to time. What resources does an coimisiún have to do the element of its work that involves informing the public on how to assess information and trying to deal with disinformation or misinformation?

What kind of resources does it have? Does the commission feel that it is properly equipped, supported and resourced to do what it has been tasked with doing? What type of resources are available to it to carry out this work? Does the commission feel empowered to do what is expected of it? We do not just want window dressing. We want the commission to be effective and have teeth. It would be interesting to hear Mr. O'Leary's thoughts on that.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

The Senator's opening line was a perfect description of our communications strategy about how to deal with disinformation and misinformation. It involves urging people to think critically and question sources, etc. We are dipping our toe in the water for the first time with this electoral event. The campaign I spoke about, which started last week, about treating every day like April Fool's Day is a quirky attempt to reach an audience that tends to be unengaged and disengaged from the electoral process. Sometimes there is a tendency for people like me who are inside the bubble to think that everyone is going home at night talking about the referendums on 8 March because that is what I am doing when that is not the case. The Irish Times poll last week, which was four weeks out from the referendum, said that 8% of people felt that they knew enough about the referendums in order to be able to cast their vote. We will get to the electoral register in a while but at some point, when we are satisfied that the electoral register is accurate and complete and we can properly measure turnout, I hope we are held to account for increasing turnout in general elections because we need to reach these unengaged groups.

I do not know if any of the members saw or heard our television and radio ads for checktheregister.ie. They are quirky, light-hearted and humorous with the very serious message that if you do not register to vote and vote, then somebody else speaks for you. Some people do not like these ads because they are very different from the fógra we used to see in The Irish Times encouraging people to check the electoral register. I always say to anyone who has a difficulty with these ads that if you do not like them, they are not aimed at you. They are for other people. We have a vast swathe of people in this country who are unengaged. We have been looking at this issue from the wrong end of the telescope for many years. We have sat in rooms thinking about all these people who are unengaged, disengaged and removed from the process. They get up every morning, live their lives and go about their business. Our job is to be in their communities, be that virtual or real. It includes Traveller communities, immigrant communities, young people and women - all of the people who tend not to engage in the electoral process. Our job is to be in their communities and to convince them to come out and get involved because their vote is their voice.

Who knows whether we have enough resources? We certainly have enough to do the electoral events on the basis of our plans right now but based on our experience, we may come back to the Oireachtas and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and say that in order to be able to do this job properly, we need a much greater focus in the digital space or whatever else it may be. We will probably be unveiling an extensive engagement and education programme that will look at all these disengaged communities in quarter 3 of this year. When people hear the word "education", they tend to think about people in school - primary and secondary school and universities - but our ambition should be eye-watering in extending beyond that.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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The commission is certainly increasing participation in people who go to chip shops anyway. There is no question about that.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

We have been running the "check the register" campaign since the autumn. In the past five months, 200,000 people have either gone on the register for the first time or amended their details by changing their address, including their PPS number or Eircode, etc. About half of these 200,000 people are new. There are people who were 15, 16 or 17 at the time of the last general election in 2020 who will be voting for the first time or, hopefully, many times this year. It is very heartwarming to hear that because we focused on this area. It does appear to be working. We have work to do. We are not complacent in that regard but-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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It is a good campaign.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I am glad An Cathaoirleach likes it.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary for his presentation and welcome the establishment of the Electoral Commission. I will focus on disinformation, particularly who is doing what. It seems that a number of pieces of legislation are relevant to disinformation. I refer, for example, to the legislation that established the Electoral Commission, the Digital Services Act based on the EU Digital Services Act, and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. Arising from all that legislation, we have Coimisiún na Meán, an online safety commissioner and a data protection commissioner so a lot of people seem to be in this space. Could Mr. O'Leary tell me who is doing what? I looked up the Digital Services Act. It says that it marks a sea change in the EU's ability to protect society from illegal harmful online content and disinformation. We enacted the EU Digital Services Act. That seems to be really relevant to what we are talking about. Could Mr. O'Leary provide clarity about who is doing what in this space? Presumably he is aware of who else is trying to something about disinformation.

The second question relates to ballot papers for the referendums. We have heard complaints previously that ballot papers are not very user-friendly - the fógra syndrome. Particularly with two referendums, ballot papers need to be very user-friendly, and possibly not as technical, so people know exactly what they are voting for. Obviously they must be technical because it is a legal matter but if there was some sort of heading or something could be done with the colour of ballot papers, it could help. I am sure the colour of ballot papers has been dealt with. I guess the ballot papers are probably printed at this stage but anything Mr. O'Leary could say about them would be helpful.

The third question concerns the electoral register. Mr. O'Leary mentioned it in his last contribution. We heard Joe Duffy on his show. He is going to be swinging for somebody. I suspect it is Mr. O'Leary, but I am not sure.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I believe I got mentioned.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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You were mentioned all right.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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How do people register to vote? Do they have to produce their PPS number? It seems, from listening to that edition of Joe Duffy's show, that there is some confusion. What is the recommendation in that regard? Do people have to give their PPS number?

Mr. O'Leary mentioned the referendum on the Unified Patent Court. Nobody knows about that at this stage. We are concentrating on the two referendums in March. Presumably, the commission will have a role to play in the referendum on the Unified Patent Court. I think it will have its work cut out for it in that regard.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

There is a lot of legislation that covers disinformation and misinformation. There are a lot of stakeholders and actors in this space. Coimisiún na Meán is the biggest player. It looks at the entirety of the online world 24-7, all the time. Our role in respect of disinformation and misinformation is purely in the context of election campaigns. It relates to the three weeks. Once the polling orders have been signed and the elections have been called, that is when our role kicks in and it is specifically to do with the area of electoral information. It is a focus. We are a very small subset. Obviously, we will be working very closely with Coimisiún na Meán regarding the work it must do. Its brief is so much broader than our brief because it is concerned with issues like child protection and all the other areas of online safety and it is equipped to deal with that. We have a very close working relationship with it.

I am happy each of us is aware of our own roles within this space and I am sure we will be leaning on each other for experience and advice with regard to challenges that may inevitably arise.

I agree entirely on the ballot papers, by the way. Unless you work it out in advance, it is almost impossible to know which proposal is which. It is in the name of the Bill on top of it, which is why we put copies of the two ballot papers as they will appear in our information booklets. There is “family” in the name of the Bill on the family one in white and there is “care” in green in the name of the Bill on the care one. However, a person has to pay some attention to what that is because it is not immediately obvious. We have a research programme and we are currently looking at areas for further research and I suspect ballot paper design will probably come up, not just for referenda but also other electoral events. People whose names begin with A, B and C are obviously pleased with the current way of going alphabetically. The academics have been claiming for years that we should randomise those and so on, so there is a wider question to be dealt with there. It is something we are conscious of because it is the thing people are confronted with. On 7 June, the people of Limerick will walk into a polling station and be handed four separate ballot papers. This is difficult. We need to explain to people what it is they can look at. People who are not citizens of this country will get a ballot paper for their local elections and the directly elected mayor but nothing else. We need to explain to people what they can expect when they go into a polling station.

I should probably give a shout out to Joe Duffy and his show. They did an extraordinary piece of public service work when they looked at the electoral register issue. I am happy to clarify that when new people check the register and try to register themselves online, they must put in their PPS number. However, if one does not want to put in one’s PPS number, there are alternatives. People can go through a local authority and complete a form and will be registered.

We are encouraging people – no more than that – to include PPS numbers, dates of birth and eircodes because there is a project under way in the Department of housing and with the local authorities to create a single database. When people talk about the electoral register, people think there is one big register. We have 28 separate registers in this country and they do not talk to each other. We are good at putting people on the register but sometimes not so great at taking people off. If you live as an 18-year-old at home in Kerry, go to college in Dublin, do your master’s in Limerick and then get a job in Waterford, it is likely you will appear on four or five different electoral registers. The job of encouraging people to use a single, unique identifier is to eliminate these duplicates. In a couple of years time, I am hopeful our electoral register will be bulletproof or at least much better than it is. We have a responsibility as An Coimisiún Toghcháin to have oversight on the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register. It is a huge project and a significant priority for us, and we are taking it seriously.

Joe Duffy was absolutely right to highlight the issue. He mentioned my name a couple of times and I am happy to endorse it. I think he revisited the issue again today but, luckily, I am speaking to the committee, so I am not available to Joe. It is a decent piece of work. For all the confusion and concern on that particular issue on that particular day, 4,500 people checked the register afterwards and updated their details after having heard Joe Duffy. Every cloud has a silver lining, as did my particularly cloud, because we are looking for a register we can stand over.

On the Unified Patent Court, the Deputy is probably right. We have a challenge here. Because the intention is to have the referendum on the same day as the local and European Parliament elections, I think people will turn out anyway. If it was a stand-alone referendum, I probably would have concerns. The Bill was published just last week. We have already ordered the paper to prepare the information booklet for people. We will start on the design in the next week or two. Much of that work will be done before we have even finished with these referenda on 8 March. The process for how we treat the referendum – the information campaigns – will be exactly the same. We will not be treating it any more or less seriously than we have treated the others. It is a proposal to change the Constitution. It is an important matter and we will treat it seriously.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Any politician who has ever gone canvassing during or after “Liveline” can testify as to just how powerful the Joe Duffy mention is. If he brings up a topic, it certainly impacts.

On the Unified Patent Court, I note people are not focused on it at this moment but it is an important referendum. There are quite a number of things at stake for Irish businesses, particularly in terms of intellectual property rights and so on. I do not think it will be quite as non-registering as people may imagine at this point.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Troy. Before the witnesses answer, I will add something to what he said. There are reputable broadcasters, to use the terminology, where there is a balanced and fair approach, which may involve an interview going backwards and forwards. However, at the very end of it, there is a process, sometimes after the person who has been subject to the interview has left, whereby a series of tweets received by the broadcaster are read out. These tweets are read out completely with no checking or balance. They often contain the most incredible inaccuracies, but they somehow seem to miss the normal balanced process. In the context of what Deputy Troy asked, what is the commission's view of that type of commentary during election time? It is on mainstream broadcasting and not social media.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Exactly, the most famous incident being that one.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

There are a lot of interesting questions there. I will start with the easy one. On the electoral register, the intention is to eliminate duplicates wherever they occur. There will be a single database and if we have dates of birth and unique identifiers, such as PPS numbers, these will be flagged immediately. The local authority will go to the person and say it has two addresses for him or her, and ask where he or she is ordinarily resident and where that individual would like to register to vote. The whole idea is to eliminate the duplicates. It is a three-year project. The fact we are having so many electoral events this year and next year will slow down some of the work in transferring everyone because we do not like to mess with the electoral register close to an electoral event, just in case. We have to make sure there is sufficient security to retain the integrity of the register. So much good work has been done by the local authorities in the past couple of years to "clean up" the register, as they see it. Again, more work needs to be done. Some counties and local authorities are better than others. I will not, under pain of death, reveal who I think is good and bad at this because we need to look at it in its entirety.

On the meeting with the tech companies, I found them to be positive because they outlined the process by which they would deal with misinformation and disinformation. They then gave us access to talk to senior people in the organisations, at speed if need be. We flagged the issue of the need for speed during an election campaign. Each of them has an individual process to go through. If we go to the companies and say such and such a thing is clearly wrong and here is the evidence why, they have someone to take a look at it, say it is wrong, and take it down. I cannot say whether that will take ten minutes, two hours or ten hours. We do not know, but we will know based on experience. It will be part of our post-electoral event review to hold everybody to account for the promises they made in advance of an election campaign but-----

Mr. Art O'Leary:

It may be, but we have to learn the lessons at some point. There has been no real evidence of misinformation and disinformation by malign actors in Irish elections so far. We cannot be complacent, however. We have to be prepared for it. It may be, based on hard, bitter experience, that we will have to learn some hard lessons. We have to be grown up enough to be able to learn those lessons and fix the issue to ensure that it will never happen again. Let us see. The Deputy is right. It is something that needs to be taken seriously. We need to impress on all the stakeholders, not just social media companies, and maybe this strays into the "reputable journalists" area as well, that all media organisations have an obligation to present information in a fair and impartial way. When something is presented as comment, it should be labelled as comment or opinion. Newspapers are full of people with opinions on an issue, and with a view, saying what they think about an issue, which also helps the education of people.

We are back again to the issue I mentioned at the outset and a couple of times since, namely, trying to find that balance between freedom of expression and the right of people to trust the information they are being told. In the same way we are politically blind, we are also media blind. We do not have a list of reputable and disreputable journalists or reputable and disreputable organisations. There are just media organisations and online content. We look at all of it in a way that makes sure it is fair to everybody involved.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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Apologies for missing the opening statements, but I have read them.

I have a few questions. I will go over ground that other people trod on earlier but which is still in my mind. How does the commission see itself distinguishing between misinformation or disinformation and political messaging or statements that simply go too far and stretch the elastic? I will not deal with the current referendum because I do not want to prejudice anything that might happen. I will go back to a previous referendum. This is a very innocuous example but it is one nonetheless. If we go back to the Lisbon treaty referendum, which I supported and worked hard to try to get passed, I remember at that time many politicians had flyers and posters that mentioned jobs, jobs and jobs. The treaty had nothing to with jobs but obviously somebody somewhere decided this was how the public's attention would be caught. The message would be simple. This angered me, even though, as I said, I supported the treaty because there was no connection. It was not malign intent but, at the same time, it was not accurate information. How does the commission walk that very fine line? For all of us, including me, it is always somebody else who has the wrong interpretation. I am not pointing at the Chair, but it is always somebody else who-----

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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-----is the bad guy or the right-wing person or whatever. We all think our perspective is the right one.

In that context, I was very pleased to hear Mr. O'Leary say, although I expected it, that not only is the commission politically blind but media blind. It has to be. While many trusted sources of information may reflect accurate stats, facts or whatever, again, they may only reflect certain viewpoints or address certain issues. Nothing is that straightforward or simple. The fact is the commission will approach it in that way as a totally independent body. I would not expect anything else, but it is important that it is said and that everybody is aware of it so none of us here, or any media organisation today, thinks they are on the right side. It is a fine line.

I have one or two other comments. Electoral process misinformation was talked about, for example, people being told they must write on the ballot paper or that a polling station might have burned down. That is fine but it is very narrow. Will the representatives expand a little on that? That situation might be a little unusual. It might be expected that not much attention would be paid to that.

On unengaged people, I hear what was said about events and meetings. The commission has done some very good work but I will give it a piece of advice that it does not have to take. In my view, when you want to engage people, you go to their meetings rather than set up your own. It is not that you do not set up your own; you do. However, it should not be all about your meetings that people come to. The commission has got to go to the community and the voluntary groups - I see the witnesses nodding their heads - which is very important. We all talk about "on the ground". It is a great phrase. It takes time but it does work.

Here is a crazy suggestion. I only came up with it while I was sitting here, so I know it could not work in the upcoming elections or referendums. In the upcoming referendum, people will have two ballot papers. Some will have difficulty distinguishing between which is which. Might it be possible that we could set up polling stations where somebody would go in and get one ballot paper, being told specifically told that it is for the referendum on care? They would go to the polling both, mark their X and move on to another desk where they would be given the second ballot paper and told this is the referendum on the family. Having been at a number of counts for European and local elections, I have seen a not inconsequential number of times where the ballot paper starts with 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., for the local elections and continue 8, 9, 10, etc., for the European elections. Very often, returning officers are flexible in how they interpret this but, again-----

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There was a High Court case about that.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, which was lost.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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It is a legal decision. If the vote is clear, it does not matter what number it starts at.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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The vote is clear. Nonetheless, this would be to try and stop that kind of thing happening. You would have the first booth that would clearly be for one referendum and a second booth for the other. As I said, it might not work logistically but I do think it is something that could be looked at, because sometimes people do not know which is which.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I will take a quick timeout in order that we are absolutely clear. Can Mr. O'Leary just speak on the issue of sequential votes?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

The High Court judgment on that was in the Dan Kiely case in respect of the local elections. The paper had 1, 2, 3 for the local elections and 4, 5, 6 for European Parliament elections. Judge Frank Clarke, as he was then, ruled that they should not be counted because it could not be guaranteed in every single case that what was marked was the intention of the person who voted, even though, on the face of it, it seemed to indicate their intentions.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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The 1, 2, 3 should have been -----

Mr. Art O'Leary:

The 1, 2, 3 was counted -----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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That is what I had understood.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

----- but the votes for 4, 5, 6 were ruled invalid. It takes a bit of thinking to get your mind around that because for a lot of people, that was, rightly or wrongly, an expression of an order.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There was logic to it. We were talking about Limerick. People used to mark 1, 2 and then 3 and 4, but you could see the indication of the preference on that particular ballot. People only do this once every few of years. They do not exactly know. No one wants to ask. It was a hell of a lot better before that judgment. Not that I would case aspersions about what would be determined by a judge.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Mr. Justice Clarke was clear in his judgment so that is what it is.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

That just creates the challenge for us. We now know what we have to explain. With the use of video and all kinds of technology, we can explain to people how it is they should be voting and what they should be doing. That is important.

On misinformation, disinformation and political statements, I have spoken on this a couple of times today. It is trying to achieve this balance between allowing an election campaign to breathe and for people to express opinions and to get involved in healthy and robust debate. We do not want to have a chilling effect on debate where people are worried about the language they are using, etc. We have to allow a campaign to breathe. Also, however, we have to intervene where things are clearly wrong. On the basis of experience, we will finesse our plans in that regard but I am satisfied that we know where we are. How you define misinformation and disinformation is important. The difference between the two is intent. Someone spreading misinformation may be something they perhaps believe to be true and disinformation is where someone creates some content with the purpose of deceiving somebody or manipulating public opinion. What the two have in common is that they both cause public harm. That is the bar. If what someone is saying is causing public harm that it the bit where we must intervene, never mind whether there was intent. It is something we need to do.

As an elections nerd, I remember well "Vote Yes for Jobs" as an election slogan. Who knows how An Coimisiún Toghcháin would interpret that as part of its information today, but I can say that we take very seriously our obligation to provide factual information for somebody. If somebody asked "Is there anything in this proposal that means extra jobs for Ireland?" and it was perhaps not in the proposal, then we would probably put our hands up and say "No, not in the proposal". However, the political response to that might have been something around the EU's impression of us and our standing in Europe as well and that is where the goodwill leads to further investment in jobs, etc.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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That is stretching the elastic very far.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

People can interpret that themselves, as long as we are explaining it and saying “This proposal says nothing about jobs”. If the poster says “Vote Yes for Jobs”, then maybe that is where it is.

The electoral process information involves anything from registering to vote to the maintenance of the electoral register, the integrity of the vote, what happens to a ballot box between close of poll and when it turns up in the morning, etc. If the returning officer has them in the boot of his car or something like that, all of this is electoral process information and it is something where we can be very clear because we have evidence, we know what way the system is supposed to work. Ireland is one of the longest running continuous democracies in the world. We know how to run elections. Irish people are really interested and they really understand. Everything from someone’s registration to vote to the announcement of the result of a vote, anything in between, is electoral process information. This is something we will take very seriously. It is a priority for us.

I agree entirely with the Deputy. I have already accepted her advice in relation to unengaged people. I have had dozens of meetings already with groups and it is brilliant to be in a room with people from the Traveller community, people with intellectual disabilities and we have also done work in Dublin inner city with adult literacy groups. I have yet to organise a meeting for that. They have all organised meetings and I have come along to be with them and to spend as much time as they want.

Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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They are way ahead of you.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I was at a Dublin adult literacy centre event with the ETB recently. It has a pilot programme to explain the electoral process to members of the community. It is a six-week programme. People go along to a class for an hour a week every six weeks to understand how to register to vote, etc. It is a brilliant programme. The feedback from the individuals who are so enthused about this was that six weeks is not long enough. They wanted more. There is an appetite among some people who are unengaged but who want to become more engaged to understand why they have a voice. We intend to fill that space to the greatest extent possible. Mr. Carey and his team will be producing an education programme that should be eye-watering in its ambition. I think we should absolutely blow the doors off. I have said this already. When we spoke about the education programme and were looking for funding, I said there was probably a civil servant in a basement here, a bean counter, who thinks our education programme will mean delivering a leaflet to every school in the country. We can do much better than that. I would love to ask someone to make a feature film about voting and democracy in this country. So let us see. We could. Hopefully, we will not be the first people to win an Oscar by the time that happens. It is an area in respect of which we can make a real difference.

The issue of two ballot papers is interesting. I spoke to Deputy Haughey earlier about the clarity on each of the ballot papers, too. It does cause confusion. I do not know the answer to this question necessarily, but we should remember that for people voting "Yes", "Yes" and "No" or "No", it does not really matter to them.

It is only when a voter has a more sophisticated "I agree with the referendum on the family but I disagree with that on care" or the opposite way around that this comes into play. I do not know how big that group is, but, based on the information we have, it is certainly something we might come back to and think about.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary. Having concluded first round, I wish to pose some questions. We will then have supplementary questions from three members, by the looks of it. The core of this discussion is the area of what is legitimate political comment. I believe in what I call plus or minus 5%, which is if one believes a person or news organisation is completely balanced and fair, it means they usually agree with one's viewpoint by no more than plus or minus 5%. That is human nature and is a problem when it comes to analysing matters because one of the growing issues is that many people genuinely hold that the media organisation they take their news from or subscribe to, be it a traditional one or whatever, is providing truthful and fair information. Without in any way disrespecting us or disrespecting the commission, one of the biggest problems we face now is if a State commission set up by the Government tells people that something is correct or wrong, they will have a problem with believing that. They will say "No". A certain news organisation in the United States has peddled a load of rubbish under the banner of being fair and balanced. That was its slogan for years. This is a major problem because we, as elected Members of an Oireachtas trying to arbitrate and to set up structures like this, must be conscious that large numbers of people do not buy into that narrative at all. That is the problem the commission faces.

As so much has been covered, I want to address one particular matter. We have alluded to it without discussing it. I refer to access to voting. It is a disgrace that some polling stations cannot be accessed by everybody. Every person, whether able-bodied, in need of a wheelchair or with reduced mobility, should be able to access a polling station. It is not good enough for sheriffs or whomever to say that, historically, a particular building has been used as a polling station and that if people cannot vote there, they should make it known in order that they can be sent somewhere else to vote. If you are a member of society and you live in an area and everybody votes at a certain polling station, you should have that right. When does Mr. O'Leary intend to ensure that not one polling station in Ireland will discriminate against particular members of the community? That is my main question.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I will deal with the easy one first. We at An Coimisiún Toghcháin do not expect people to trust us because we turn up brand new on the landscape and say we are independent and impartial and that they should believe us because we are a trusted organisation. We will only demonstrate our independence and impartiality over time. People will either come to trust and believe us or they will not. People who do not trust or believe us just remain a group of individuals that we have to convince, because we are genuinely independent in the conduct of our business. We are doing our best in that regard. People make mistakes all the time. I am trying to create an organisation whereby if we make a mistake, we own it straight away. We will own up to it immediately, learn from it and never make it again. The Chairman is absolutely right that there are many people in Ireland with certain a world view who like to get their information from a particular source. To them, whatever the organisation is, that is their trusted source of information. It is the place they trust to get information from and we are just hoping that with the passage of time, it will come to be true that we can be trusted, but it is not an easy job.

I agree with the Chairman entirely on access to voting. If we step it back a little, the question is not how there are inaccessible polling stations in this day and age, given that most of them are schools, but how we have inaccessible schools. We vote one day every five years, but schoolchildren still have to get to schools as well. It is something we have spoken to returning officers about and which is going to be a really big focus. In our first event on 8 March we have targeted 100 polling stations for our members and staff to visit, all of which were listed as inaccessible in the previous general election. There is a difficulty here. It is not an excuse, just something the returning officers say. They can close these polling stations and use somewhere else, but consider rural areas where there are small numbers of people voting, such as, for example, 200 in a general election. If there are a small number of people with a disability who want to vote on the day, then in order to facilitate these people in a proper accessible station it must be moved 10 km to 12 km away, thereby inconveniencing the other 198 and 199 people who must now travel in a way they did not have to on previous polling days. That is a reason, not an excuse, for this, but it is something we are really focusing on. In fairness to returning officers and the Department of housing, years ago the number of polling centres that were inaccessible was over 100. In 2020, it was 23. The number is decreasing dramatically, but we will not be happy until it is zero.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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There should be none.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I agree.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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To clarify, and it is important that the commission takes this into account, it is not just the fact a polling station is completely inaccessible. There are a number - I suggest it is more than 20-odd - that are very difficult to access. There are levels of human dignity that people are entitled to. People do not deserve to be put in position where voting is an arduous process. We owe it to people in this day and age that the latter should not be the case. It cannot be beyond us to have a situation where everybody has the right to access a polling station with ease and go in and cast their votes. I am glad to hear that is at the heart of Mr. O'Leary's thinking as well.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I could not have put it better. For people who are struggling and find it difficult to vote, it is too late now for the referendums but we should be making more use of postal votes as well. People with disabilities are entitled to a postal vote and if they would prefer to use that-----

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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That is really important. I heard that postal vote answer being given. I do not really like it. Somebody has the right to access a cinema or theatre to see a film or play. It is not the case that we say to them they can wait until it comes onto a streaming service as an alternate way. Some people's preferred choice is to go and vote with their partner, their children or that their children go and vote with them. They want to do that and do not want to do it by postal vote. As a result, postal votes should not come into it. That is an entirely supplemental benefit we should be offering, but it should never be offered as somehow getting us around this.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

No, it is not an alternative. It is important we adopt a rights-based approach to this as well. For some people it may be that they would prefer to vote by post, so as long as they are aware that option remains available to them that is the important thing. We will say "If you would like to vote by post" rather than that "We think you should". I agree with the Chairman. Zero is our target figure.

I will come back to the opening question in order to be clear on the rights of British citizens. British citizens who do not have joint citizenship with another EU country are no longer entitled to vote in European Parliament elections.

Reciprocal voting rights are still in place for Dáil elections and all people ordinarily resident in Ireland can register to vote in the local elections.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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It is an interesting change. One of the worries I would see on that, and I would see it as a real worry, is if the British interpreted that the same way, Irish citizens might lose the right to vote for the Scottish national Parliament or the Welsh Assembly, because there is no equivalent body in Ireland for a quid pro quo. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that up until now, Irish people have enjoyed those voting entitlements in the UK. We are now very much having a change on that. It is very interesting and may need to be looked at a little bit more, in all honesty.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

These are European Parliament elections. We allow people to vote in Dáil elections and local elections as well. We have been doing some work to support the British Electoral Commission recently. They have started to offer people living in Ireland a vote in British elections now as well. Residents in this country can vote in the forthcoming British election too. There are many things here. We did not touch on it and maybe it is a step too far for this committee, but there was a commitment in the programme for Government to extend voting rights to our diaspora in presidential elections as well. The Taoiseach announced recently that there might be a referendum. The time to have a referendum on that particular issue would be to coincide with the presidential election in October 2025. It is an area we will look at. If we think we have a difficulty with the electoral register as it stands, we would have to think about how we might create an electoral register and, even worse, how people might vote, whether by post or turning up in embassies. Electronic voting, anyone?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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As someone who for a period had ministerial responsibility in that area, I am very au fait with the difficulties involved in that extension of the franchise. I just want to come back to the issue because it really is not clear. Regardless of what efforts are made to enable British people to vote in British general elections, British people who are not dual citizens will not have the right to vote in the European elections.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Correct.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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That decision stems out of what?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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European law.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Is it a European-wide Directive?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Exactly.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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And that supersedes the reciprocal arrangement? I hear Deputy Howlin but my point is that we specifically have put in place arrangements between Ireland and the United Kingdom to ensure that----

Mr. Art O'Leary:

For national elections. However, a British person's right to vote in European Parliament elections did not stem from our agreement with Britain, it stemmed from a European-wide agreement where European citizens can vote in European Parliament elections wherever they live. Britain is not a part of the European Union any more.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I agree but I just worry about where that brings us in terms of the arrangements for regional assembly elections in the UK and whether it becomes a disenfranchising point.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

We can have a look at it. I will send you a note on it. Now that you mention it, I am curious myself and it is probably something I should have been curious about before now. Perhaps I will revisit it.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. Senator Regina Doherty is next.

Regina Doherty (Fine Gael)
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Mr. O'Leary is so welcome. He is doing a blindingly good job. This has been such a fascinating conversation to listen to for the past hour or so.

I have a comment more than a question. Mr. O'Leary referred to trying to validate the commission's existence as an independent authority with regard to information. I think it has already done a superb job. For politicians like me and my colleagues, it is lovely to be able to have somebody who is independent to whom we can point people. They do not have to believe what I am saying to them because there are probably equal voices on the other side that are very credible, even in this referendum, that are saying the opposite. To be able to point to somewhere that really is independent and that gives factual information is a huge godsend that we have never had before. I honestly do think you are doing a great job. A test of the independence was when somebody had to correct something a Minister said in the last week as to being not quite reflective of what is in the Constitution. The Minister had to come out and say that it was her interpretation or whatever.

The facts are important and to be able to trust a source for only the facts is a wonderful resource for us to have. I wanted to say thank you. We talk about disinformation and particular groups spreading information. We are living in an age where we are so digitalised that we nearly all believe something that is online that is not true. It is very easy. I can admit that the night we had the awful riots in Dublin, I absolutely believed that the Army was on its way to Dublin; I saw a picture and thought it must be true. It turned out to be total nonsense. We are all a little susceptible to believing things that are not quite true. It is really wonderful to have an organisation that is truly independent, despite you thinking you have to earn that badge over the months and years ahead. I think it is already working. It is really exciting to look at the programme of work that you have. We have been giving out about things for years and they have never been fixed. Even though you are only up and running a couple of months, I can already see the momentum building to get things fixed in a positive way.

I wish Mr. O'Leary and his team well and continued success. I thank the Cathaoirleach for letting me in.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I thank the Senator for her kind words. I should use the opportunity to give a shout-out to the small team currently working at An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission. They have been working night and day from the time of the constituency review last year. We really hit the ground running and have had a number of discrete projects. They have been working very hard. In the past couple of weeks, we have had hundreds and thousands of phone calls, emails and all sorts from the Irish people, who are really engaged and very curious. They want us to tell them what a durable relationship is and so on. People are engaged. We are delighted to be in a position to do this. It is a space where we believe we can make a real difference to democracy and that is important.

On the issue of misinformation and disinformation, something that has not come up yet - the Senator touched on it - is the issue of deepfakes and artificial intelligence. People are more conscious now, ever since they saw the picture of the Pope in a puffer jacket. That was a moment where the penny dropped that all of these things are possible now. Since, we have seen Arnold Schwarzenegger singing Whitney Houston songs and all sorts. When it is obvious it is easy for people, but we need to work much harder in that space to support them. We are very happy to take calls, emails and contacts from anybody. If you know somebody who is struggling with an opinion, give us a call and we will be happy to talk them through it.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. Deputies Howlin, Ó Murchú and Haughey are indicating. We might take the three together if they can be quick and then we will come back to Mr. O'Leary.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I am sorry for prolonging it but this is an area in which politicians have a deep interest. I wish to ask Mr. O'Leary a question about the electoral process issue he outlined, namely, that of spoiled votes. We are all frustrated. I see several thousand spoiled votes in Wexford every single election. It becomes numbing when you see it at a European election, where there are actually supermarket trolley-loads. We watch the counts carefully and I know there are people in my constituency and probably every constituency who have spoiled their votes since the first vote they gave by putting X on a number of individuals. They think they have voted and that their vote registered. The commission's role in combating that is to explain the thing most people are afraid to ask, namely, how to vote. I am not talking about children. I am talking about reaching out to adults and saying this constitutes a spoiled vote. A related matter that was touched upon earlier is that relating to the sequential vote. There are some people, and I have seen it and it is normally accepted, who vote with X, and then two X's, three X's and four X's, or who vote in Roman numerals, I, II, III, IV and so on. They are normally accepted because they are determined to be a clear indication. Is the issue of reducing spoiled votes by ensuring people know how to vote part of your remit? How are you going to go about it?

We also talked about duplicates on the electoral register.

There is an even more egregious thing. There is the adage in terms of law that it is better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent person to be convicted. I would prefer to have somebody registered twice than to have somebody removed from the register and deprived of their right to vote, which does happen. Sometimes it can only be malicious because, no matter what is said, people who are decades in the same location do not check the register. If a person has voted for the last 30 years in the one polling booth, they assume they are on it. Is there some way that people could be notified that they are about to be deleted from the register so that we can be sure that is what is intended?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I do not know what Deputy Howlin thought about Arnold but an extension of what the Deputy was saying is that there are a lot of young people who are not going to vote twice but they do feel that they have a right to maintain the registration that was down home even if they are living up in Dublin. They may have no intention of voting in Dublin but they might end up on a register there and they do feel that they have that right. I know there are laws about normal habitual residence and everything else like that, but it is the case, if I can phrase it that way, that they are just choosing where they exercise their vote rather than voting twice.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I suspect this will crystallise when we start to highlight duplicates in the electoral register. People will be confronted with the choice on where they are ordinarily resident and where they would like to vote. I think it is an area that we will revisit in 2025 when we start to look at removing people from the register.

Deputy Howlin is absolutely right. I think there is nothing worse. I remember the Newstalk political correspondent, Páraic Gallagher, who in the 2016 election said he was going to vote and then he would have to go to work and to visit other polling stations, only to discover that he had been removed from the electoral register. It does happen sometimes.

There is an instruction to local authorities that there must be three visible attempts to contact people, and they must have refused to answer three written requests telling them that they have been unable to confirm they are living there. However, it does happen occasionally. This will feature as part of our review of the electoral register project. Again, it is something Mr. Carey and his team will be looking at as well.

There was a dependance in the olden days, if I can call them that, in old God's time, on fieldworkers. Local authorities had fieldworkers who spent their time going around communities, knocking on doors and asking people if they could confirm who was in the house. With the rise of apartment blocks and gated communities, local authorities do not use fieldworkers for this any more. They spend time doing desk-based research, checking rip.ie and all of these things as well. They confirm addresses using social welfare and all of that kind of stuff too. This is something that will get into the real nitty-gritty of it because it is the fundamental foundation stone of everything. The electoral register has to be right. Everybody who is entitled to vote should be on the register. We should encourage people to be on the register, and if they are on the register, we need to make sure they stay there if that is their entitlement. It is big for us.

Spoiled votes are, again, another brilliant learning opportunity for us and an educational opportunity because people have many learning styles. The older generation perhaps like to read about how to do these things - "This is what your ballot paper looks like. You put 1, 2 and 3." The younger generation might like to see a cartoon or some kind of animation. We have the facilities now to do all this stuff in-house. Everybody will have at their disposal, at the click of a button or the opening of their local newspaper, a way to discover how to vote.

I have mentioned Limerick a couple of times. This is the first time in this country that we will have a directly elected mayor. I think we should use it as an opportunity to really push the boat out. Let us go and have some fun in Limerick. I am not sure whether those words were ever said at an Oireachtas committee before, but we intend to spend some time in Limerick on all the local media, on local radio, and meeting people to encourage them to get out and vote, just to test some of the machinery and to see what works and what encourages people to get out. It is something on which we can be held to account.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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In the absence of a Limerick Deputy, I am sure the people of Limerick would say there is a lot of fun to be had there, all the time.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I have no doubt of that, but I am not sure it was ever said in this committee room.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Is it misinformation or disinformation?

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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My sister has lived there for 30 years so if I did not say that in defence of Limerick she would be on to me straight away. Deputy Ó Murchú had indicated that he wants to come back in.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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In fairness, some information on how to vote would be helpful. That is clear to anybody who has looked at spoiled ballots.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I know.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I recall that Louth County Council looked at duplicates a while ago. It was a case of removing all of them rather than just removing the duplications. If someone was down four times, all of the four entries were removed. In some cases the entries probably related to rental properties.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I do not want to interrupt Deputy Ó Murchú's flow. I know I said I would not out any of the good or bad local authorities, but Louth County Council is amazing in its approach to the electoral register. I would not like it to get out there that in some way it is not doing a great job. It is doing a fantastic job.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I am talking about something that happened ten or 15 years ago. In fairness, the council has been good.

The fact we are now dealing with a rolling register is a real success. As regards the review of the register and automatic registration, I accept there are issues relating to GDPR. We must really get down to dealing with whether we can use PPS numbers and people leaving because that is how we ensure the maximum possible franchise. We must allow a greater amount of freedom, so that we can introduce some of the stuff that they have in the North as regards proxies and having greater access to postal voting for people who are on holidays. In some cases holidays or family events may have been booked a long time in advance. It is incredibly difficult to do.

The checktheregister.ie facility is good but there is a need for a bit of dickying it up. I am talking about a couple of "if" statements. When I try to search for myself, for some reason, as great as Louth County Council is, there are no fadas on my name and there is an apostrophe included. When I search with the apostrophe on the phone, I cannot find my name but it is fine if I remove the apostrophe. Including the apostrophe in the search does work on a computer. It is a minor thing. It will probably have to be done like a Google search or other search where there is no difference whether or not there is a fada. They are very simple things.

I will just go back to what was said earlier. Seeing will be believing in regard to the commission's interaction with the tech companies. The problem is that while Cambridge Analytica has possibly been dealt with, its own algorithms created an awful lot of these problems. We know there are companies looking to make money and we all deal with the unintended consequences on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. O'Leary says he has a big stick, which he called Part 5. Could he just outline the detail on that?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I think that is enough questions.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I think that will do. We are coming up to the end of our time, so I ask Mr. O'Leary to give us a quick response.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

I will give a quick answer. The rolling register is proving successful. The 16- and 17-year olds are starting to enrol now as well. It is a very good thing that they are able to do it all the time rather than having to work with ad hoc deadlines.

The increased use of postal voting is something that the Government has asked us to do some research on as well. There are some fears around increasing the postal voting and while we have to be conscious of that, it would be a help for people who are on holidays or away. I discovered this week that if you are in Dublin studying, etc., you can apply for a postal vote. Students can apply for a postal vote. There are a lot of facilities out there already that people do not know about, and again, that is part of our job to go and do that.

I agree with what was said about checktheregister.ie. It is a brilliant facility to have. It is one of those great things, but sometimes people forget. For example, to take a name out of the blue, if your name was Joe Duffy and you searched for yourself on checktheregister.ie and you could not find yourself, then this would not be a great thing, but it may be that it was your mother or father who registered you as an 18-year old when the local authority fieldworker came around and registered you as "Joseph". There are things that we should do in that regard.

We can probably help people by explaining a little more about how to conduct a proper search. It is my fervent hope that everyone who goes to the polling station on 8 March to vote will discover they are on the register even if they could not find themselves on checktheregister.ie. If not, if there are issues, we will also deal with them because we will have a number of electoral events this year. I agree entirely with the Deputy that the proof of the pudding with the tech companies will be in how they behave in the white hot heat of an election campaign. We have long memories and we are quick learners and we will be holding people to account for not living up to the high expectations we have of them.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Will Mr. O'Leary comment on Part 5?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Ultimately, the commencement of Part 5 remains a matter for the Government and the Oireachtas. I hope there will be conversations between the Government and the European Commission about the alignment of the provisions of Part 5, some of which have never been done anywhere in the world, such as the idea about any information about a candidate or an election. It is difficult because that pretty much covers everything. Anything someone says about a candidate is now potentially under the spotlight, so we need to keep an eye on such things and ensure that the provisions in the legislation are such that we can work with them in the course of a general election campaign. It is highly unlikely that Part 5 will be commenced in advance of the local and European Parliament elections, but I understand it is a Government priority to commence it in advance of the general election, whenever that might be.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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I will briefly bring the discussion back to our EU affairs committee. As practising politicians, we have found the discussion thus far interesting.

Many witnesses in this committee spoke about foreign interference and malign actors, especially in respect of Russia. I am thinking of representatives from the western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and so forth. It is a really big issue and it relates to the question of disinformation. Did Mr. O'Leary say earlier in his presentation that there is no evidence of foreign interference in Irish elections, but that it is something we need to be wary of and it is certainly a possibility in the future? That is one question.

We got a letter last November from the chairperson, Ms Justice Marie Baker, about the research programme. Does Mr. O'Leary want to say something about it? I am sure he is quite busy with elections this year and next year. Will the research programme include the issue of disinformation?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, I did say there is no evidence of electoral interference, but our last election was four years ago and the world has moved on considerably since then.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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There were by-elections.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, there were by-elections.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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Who won that?

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We remember it well.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

However, we have not had a national event that might attract attention. People speak about Russia all the time, and perhaps China. I was at the Political Studies Association of Ireland conference in Belfast not long ago, where an academic gave a paper saying that the vast majority of misinformation and disinformation in the political sphere right now comes from the United States and Britain. That leads me back to the point I made earlier, that in the three-week general election campaign, we will not waste any time wondering where it came from. Our job is to deal with it. Perhaps later, we or someone else can look at where it came from and whether there might be offences in law, but the important thing for us is to retain the integrity of the electoral process and ensure there is no misinformation or disinformation, which can cause public harm and affect people's perception of the electoral process. That is the key focus.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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Will Mr. O'Leary comment on the research programme?

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, I love talking about the this, so members should brace themselves. The short version is that this is an area where An Coimisiún Toghacháin can make a real difference to the debate on further electoral reform. The Government has asked us to research a number of issues, including voting at 16, the use of posters in elections, the increased use of postal voting and whether we should do away with by-elections. We have been asked to look at that too. The commission, following the constituency review, said it would it like to do some research on the 20,000 to 30,000 of population per TD provision in the Constitution and also the potential for constituencies greater than five-seats. If six-seat constituencies were available to us we might be living in a different electoral landscape, but three, four and five-seat ones is what is available.

We went to public consultation shortly before Christmas and we got 61 submissions suggesting further areas for research. The commission will have a look at all those issues and identify half a dozen or perhaps a dozen research priorities to look at in the next year or two. It will be great. We will make recommendations and then normally it would be a matter for the Oireachtas whether to agree with them. People seem to have strong views on some of these key issues, such as votes at 16, but ultimately it remains a matter for the Government and the Oireachtas to decide whether they want to accept our recommendations. However, if we are asked for our opinion, I presume someone will take it reasonably seriously.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. O'Leary. He really was starting to open up a whole new area with his last answer.

Mr. Art O'Leary:

Yes, sorry about that.

Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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We will not get into it because we are going to bring our meeting to a conclusion. I thank Mr. O'Leary very much for his contribution. I also thank his colleagues for coming along with him. It was very informative. We covered a lot of ground. I have no doubt there will be subsequent engagement. The focus of the committee is primarily, as Deputy Haughey and I alluded to earlier, on the impact this has on European elections. However, it also has a general impact on elections in general. I wish Mr. O'Leary the best of luck with his work.