Dublin South East Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Doolan - Community Based Voter Education

Published: 4 February, 2004

Attending today's public launch of Voter Education programme in the Mansion House, Sinn Féin's Daithí Doolan called on the government to ensure "that this education programme is inclusive and not restricted to a bandwagon cruising the suburbs."

The launch today, at 11.15am, is being hosted by the public relations company Q4.

According to Doolan "we must ensure that every community participates in this education programme. This new electronic voting gives us a great opportunity to bring voter education in to all our communities, but I fear they will use the opportunity to further alienate the public.

So far the government have failed miserably in opening up the debate on voting. They need to ensure that there is complete public confidence in this system. Flaws already exist in the system according to independent consultants Zerflow, it is now time to rectify the flaws. If there is not cross party support for the system how can we instil confidence in our voting public."

Doolan goes on, "today's launch could be the start of an inclusive, community based programme. I will be raising these concerns today and will attempt to get assurance that Q4 will become partners in voter education."

In conclusion Doolan outlined that "communities already have an infrastructure and it is that infrastructure that needs to be tapped into. Communities are the experts, the government just need to listen."