Councillor deleted from election register

A LOCAL politician running for the Dáil has been removed from the updated register of electors.

Green Party city councillor in Cork, Chris O’Leary, discovered yesterday his name has been deleted from the final register published this week.

This is despite claims by Environment Minister Dick Roche that a €12 million Government campaign to update the country’s voting lists was a success.

Mr O’Leary said his omission from the new voters’ list highlights the fact that it is still riddled with inaccuracies just three months before the General Election.

Mr O’Leary, who is running in Cork North Central, has lived at the same address in Mahon for more than 25 years and was on the old register.

Last September, he handed an update form to one of the 1,500 field workers hired to carry out door-to-door enquiries as part of the update.

“I took it for granted that everything would be OK. That was until last week when I got the final register,” he said.

Despite the fact this his wife’s and neighbours’ names have been included on the new list, his name does not appear on the final published list.

“This highlights what the Green Party has been calling for for some time — for people to be able to use their PPS numbers to vote. It is a simple process that would cut out a load of paperwork,” he said.

This latest omission fuels fears that there are tens of thousands of inaccuracies like this on the updated list which could force thousands of voters to be turned away on voting day.

There is also a huge gap between the number of people on the voting lists and the number of people who are entitled to vote.

In some of the worst examples, a quarter of the adult population in Galway city and Waterford city is still missing from the register, with almost one-in-five missing from Dublin’s register.

The Labour Party first raised concerns about the updated register last November.

Its Kildare South TD, Jack Wall, said he had been removed from the register, despite filling in the form and giving it to a local collector.

He has lived at the same address for over 30 years.

The party’s chief whip, Emmet Stagg, also told the Dáil in November that when he checked the draft register for Kildare, he discovered that not only had his name been removed, but also the names of his entire family.

Kildare County Council said Mr Wall’s name was removed by mistake but Mr Stagg’s name was still on the register, although his address had been put into the wrong townland in error.