Electoral Reform Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2022-07-06
============================================================

Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

I strongly support these amendments. In order to register as a political party it is necessary to come up with a constitution or memorandum. It has to be given to the registrar under this regime. It seems the public is entitled to know how a party is constituted. There are questions such as whether a certain class of membership has a veto over decisions. If a party is going to have a public profile, the public is entitled to see exactly who in it rules the roost and who elects its leader. People are entitled to know whether all votes in a party are the same. I do not need to elaborate. I believe there is no harm in allowing in that little bit of daylight. I have knowledge in a professional capacity and I will not elaborate any further-----

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2022-07-06/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2022-07-06