Seanad postage outlay amounts to 88% of direct election costs

Postage accounts for most (88 per cent) of the €2.7 million direct cost to the State of running the Seanad elections, it has emerged. All other direct costs, those of the returning officers for the university and vocational panels and the price for the Office of Public Works to print the ballot papers, total less than €300,000.

All Trinity College Dublin and National University of Ireland graduates are entitled to vote, whether living in Ireland or abroad. As university candidates watch the rising number of registered postal ballots being returned undelivered, there are increased calls for the implementation of changes recommended in the 2015 report on Seanad reform chaired by NUI chancellor Maurice Manning. These include a move to online registration and voting.

The second major reform recommended is legislation to implement the right granted in a 1979 referendum to give the vote to graduates of non-traditional universities.

Trinity panel candidate Senator Averil Power (Independent), who first raised concerns about undeliverable post, said 10,000 completed ballot papers had been received from a total electorate of 58,000. She said 12,094 had been returned by An Post, either because the voter was not home and did not collect their vote at the local sorting office or they were posted to old addresses.

Ms Power said the fact that voters had to be at home or be able to access a sorting office during working hours “highlights the need for online voting”.

On the NUI panel, 15,000 completed ballot papers have been received from the electorate of 103,000, 18,600 have been returned undelivered and 600 have been reposted to voters on request.

NUI candidate Michael McDowell, who has also called for reform of the voting process, said this left 70,000 voters who had yet to cast their ballot. He urged all voters to track down their ballot papers from their post office or from the NUI, to cast their ballot and return it ahead of the deadline of 11 am on April 26th.

Trinity College candidate Oisín Coghlan expressed reservations about eliminating Seanad postal voting. “I’m not sure I’d make it an exclusively online franchise,” he said, as this could exclude some voters.

The director of Friends of the Earth pointed to the attempt to abolish the Seanad and the claims about its high cost. The electorate’s decision showed “it’s not all about cost”, Mr Coghlan said.

Candidates are allowed one freepost election flyer. They design and pay for printing themselves and the State posts it. Mr Coghlan suggested that instead of separately posting each candidate’s flyer, they should be put together as a booklet “and there is more of a chance that people might actually flick through it and read them”.

Figures for the 2011 Seanad election show postage costs for sending election literature for each candidate – one flyer each – was €1.077 million. The cost of the postal vote – delivery and return of the ballot papers – was €1.326 million, a total of €2.4 million. All other direct costs amounted to €283,000.

The €2.7 million direct cost of the Seanad election compares to €29 million for the Dáil election. More than 99 per cent of the Seanad cost was for the university panels because of the 161,000 electorate for six seats, compared to a total electorate of just 1,150 for the 43 seats on five vocational panels.