Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin defends his 'unusual' appearance as Oireachtas committee witness

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin has defended his appearance as a witness at an Oireachtas committee of which he is a member.

Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin has defended his 'unusual' appearance as a witness at an Oireachtas committee of which he is a member.

Mr Ó Broin appeared as Sinn Féin's witness as the Committee for Housing, Local Government and Heritage which discussed the use of the electoral register by political parties. The discussion formed part of the committee's scrutiny of the Electoral Reform Bill.

While Fine Gael, the Green Party, Labour and the Social Democrats sent their secretaries general and Fianna Fáil its assistant secretary general, Mr Ó Broin was chosen to represent his party. He told the committee this was allowed and not "problematic" as he is a senior member of the party who has worked with Sinn Féin for 20 years.

"The letter of invitation to the party was an invitation to the secretary-general or their nominee, and the party has chosen me as their nominee, so I’m quite happy to fulfil that role. My understanding is there’s nothing in standing orders to prohibit such a decision."

Committee chair Steven Matthews told the committee that this was correct, but told Mr Ó Broin that he would not be allowed to ask questions of other witnesses.

Unusual situation

"It's an unusual situation, I have to admit," the Green Party TD said.

Fine Gael senator John Cummins called Mr Ó Broin's appearance in place of party general secretary Ken O'Connell "an affront to the committee". 

He said that he would "question what Sinn Féin has to hide" by sending Mr Ó Broin and that he would be formally requesting Mr O'Connell come before the committee.

The questioning of Mr Ó Broin focused on his party's Abú electoral database, with the Dublin mid-west TD saying that a training document on the system was inaccurate.

"It’s clear in hindsight that the person who wrote those [training slides] wasn’t accustomed with the system. It is not possible to upload information onto the Abú system from social media."

He said that the party is working closely with the Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon and giving her "full access" to the system, which builds on the electoral register. He said that the data is not controlled centrally and "two or three people" in each constituency would have access to the system.

Data Protection Commissioner

The Data Protection Commission has confirmed that it has written to all political parties in Ireland saying that it intends to carry out a data protection audit on each.

Under questioning from Sinn Féin's Thomas Gould, Fine Gael's John Carroll told the committee that the offices of all elected representatives has a statutory entitlement to receive the electoral register. He said that because different offices have different staff numbers, there is no definitive number of people who have access to the register within his party. Fianna Fáil's Darragh McShea told Mr Gould that he was confident that all of its data is held within guidelines.

Brian Sheahan of the Social Democrats told the committee that his party does not store data on voters or marked versions of the electoral register. He said he supported ending the practice of parties getting registers which may indicate previous voting preferences.