Council rejects voters’ register allegations

CLAIMS that the names of dozens of dead people are on the voters’ register in Kerry were strongly rejected yesterday.

A report by the Oireachtas Library and Research Unit found 50,146 people were entitled to vote in the Kerry North constituency, but 56,216 were actually registered.

Kerry County Council, which is responsible for compiling the register of electors, said “only a handful, if any” of the 6,000-plus additional people on the register are dead.

A council spokesman said many of those erroneously registered had moved out of the county and a large number were students from Kerry who were attending educational institutions in other parts of the country.

“The number of people in Kerry who die is checked on a quarterly basis and the register is updated accordingly. There’s also an annual updating of the register,” he said.

The council has a 38-strong staff of enumerators who check the situation on the ground, often on a door-to-door basis, and whose is job is to ensure listings on the register are correct. However, the spokesman pointed out the Oireachtas report was based on figures from the 2006 census and said there had been some shifts and movement in population in the three years since the census.

“For instance, in Listowel, the census area was different to that covered by the enumerators which explains the discrepancy there.”

Audits had been conducted on the work of enumerators in a number of areas, he added.

Kerry County Council has already called for a centralised system under which a person’s PPS number could be used in conjunction with the register to ensure the register was accurate.

“Centralised data could be used so that, when people moved to another constituency, their vote moved with them,” said the spokesman. “That would call for changes in the data protection laws, but it would take the guesswork out of the system and get rid of gaps. It would also be a lot easier and more accurate.”

According to the Oireachtas reports, almost all electoral registers show discrepancies, but the Kerry figures are among the highest.