Council updates vote by ignoring regulations

THE FG/Labour-controlled Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council apparently was the only local authority in the country that managed successfully to update its electoral register on time and without making widespread errors or incorrect deletions.

And how did they do it? Simple: they completely ignored the ridiculous regulations given to them by the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche.

The cathaoirleach of the council, Cllr Eugene Regan, has estimated that if they had followed the minister’s regulations, up to 30,000 people would have been deleted from the register unnecessarily because they didn’t reply to a letter that was sent to them.

Isn’t it a shocking illustration of the incompetence of the Minister for the Environment that the measures he introduced to solve this serious problem somehow managed to place the integrity of the electoral process in even greater peril?

The Government is starting to look very like a man lost in a bog. Every step it takes only makes things worse.

Barry Walsh

Brookfield Hall

Castletroy

Co Limerick