Dail Report: Work on updating the electoral register will be completed by the November deadline for the new draft register, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil.
Mr Ahern said census enumerators or other temporary personnel would assist the local authorities by going door to door.
"The only way we can tidy up this is by having census enumerators or other temporary staff doing the leg-work," he said, insisting the work would be done by November.
"I am afraid it will have to be a shank's mare exercise, which is the only way we will get a good register."
As concern intensified over the accuracy of the register, Mr Ahern said that using an individual's PPS number was the best way forward, but this would require modern technology and a long lead-in time.
As parties referred repeatedly to voter fraud, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Sinn Féin's co-ordinator in the Dáil, said he was "quite sick, sore and tired of the continued slur against the party I am proud to represent" that their TDs had been elected "by any other means than as a result of the democratic choice of our communities and constituencies".
Mr Ahern said that "voter fraud is one of the major issues which concerns me if not everyone else. Controls at all polling stations at election time will be strengthened, with updated guidelines in the area before the next general election".
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the PPS system could apparently "eliminate wholesale fraud, particularly such as has occurred in Border counties in a number of elections".
He asked if the Taoiseach agreed with his own brother, Minister of State Noel Ahern, "that one party represented in the House has been and is actively involved in wholesale fraudulent activity in regard to the electoral register".
Mr Ahern said that "while the campaign to get people on the register is very active, the problem is that people never come off it. I have seen houses in my constituency where 80 people are supposedly living. That is very difficult since these houses are supposed to have only four or five bedrooms. There was an extraordinary voter turn-out in some of those houses in the last general election".
His other brother, alderman Maurice Ahern, had argued for years about using the PPS number. It would be a "good way of addressing this, but would require a good lead-in time with modern technology".
Strong legislation had been introduced for voter fraud and this "must be mirrored on the ground by vigilance on the part of polling staff and personation agents to ensure eligible voters can vote".
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte asked if the existing register would be set aside and a new register established, or would the current register be updated, "leaving the dead generations on it".
He asked: "What is wrong with bringing one paragraph of legislation before the House to enable the CSO to transfer the box on the census form with the name and address to an electoral register?" This would not break any confidentiality.
Mr Ó Caoláin expressed his anger at the allegations of voter fraud against his party "by Aherns of any variety and the Kennys of this world". He said that "if the Taoiseach or any of his brothers have information of voter fraud, they have a responsibility to report it". Mr Ahern said a large number of people listed should not be there because they had moved or were listed twice or several times. "In some cases, people on the register may not exist at all."
