Rumours indicate that the Government may be about to create an electoral commission and, if so, they need to think carefully about its role and influence.

Proper management of the electoral process requires attention to a wide range of matters. Roughly in sequence, this starts in the long lead-up to the next election with reviews of constituency boundaries, updating the electoral register and maintaining the register of political parties. As the election date draws near there is the candidate nomination process, scrutinising broadcasting coverage during the heat of the election campaign, and managing the vote process on polling day, the election counts and the reporting of results across the country in the days following.

There is also the need to monitor the revenue-raising and expenditure activities of the political parties and candidates over the campaign.

In more than two-thirds of the world’s democracies, the bulk of these activities is carried out by an electoral commission that operates independently of government – thus ensuring a high level of electoral integrity. After much delay and prevarication by successive Irish governments stretching back over a decade, we may finally be about to have one here too.

This is long overdue. Ireland is behind the curve internationally in having the management of our electoral process dispersed across the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government, the 31 local authorities and a clutch of different agencies including: the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO), the Registrar of Parties, the Constituency Commissions, Referendum Commissions and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

We can only hope Minister Alan Kelly follows the lead of other countries in ensuring that we end up with a commission with real influence. He needs to ensure three things.

First, the electoral commission should be given the widest possible remit. Renaming SIPO and adding a few additional functions such as party registration, constituency boundary design and oversight of referendums is not sufficient. Any electoral commission should also take over the election oversight role of the franchise section of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in managing candidate nominations, appointing returning officers, liaising with the local authorities in setting up polling stations and ensuring a smooth count process.

It should be the job of the commission to oversee these roles, working in conjunction with the local authorities. Following best international practice (such as in Australia and New Zealand), the commission should play a key role in cleaning up and modernising our archaic registration and vote processes and in encouraging turn out at elections.

Second, Ireland’s electoral commission needs to have adequate enforcement powers. The regular standoffs between SIPO and the political parties over the latters’ efforts to stymie proper scrutiny of their finances should not be allowed to continue. The commission should have the power to proactively call parties to account on these and other matters relevant to the electoral process. It must be given sufficient regulatory powers and complete independence from ministerial influence.

Finally, the Minister needs to provide the commission with enough resources to ensure that it can carry out its role properly, which includes an ability to commission research and to experiment with new processes.

The establishment of an electoral commission for Ireland needs to be more than a simple box-ticking exercise. Tarting up SIPO’s headquarters in Leeson Street, replacing their brass plate and giving them a few additional roles is simply not going to cut it.

For Ireland to have an internationally recognised electoral process with integrity, it needs an electoral commission with a wide remit, strong enforcement powers and sufficient resource. Let’s hope the Minister is listening.

David Farrell holds the Chair of Politics at UCD @dfarrell_UCD