Fact is that having young people on the register in the place that they are living is raised by young people as the biggest barrier they face when an increased participation is looked for. To be fair the various political youth wings make a big push each autumn other third level campuses.

The questions you have raised are really spot on and very important.

The starting date does confound common sense, and so you’re entirely right to ask why April 2nd? The answer is that the starting date is based on watertight international evidence. The experience from elsewhere is conclusive and the statistics speak for themselves: starting more than 4 weeks before the day of a national election is highly ineffective – 6 weeks is the absolute limit, with the last week being the most crucial. Like it or not that is the reality and that is the reason we are launching on April 2nd and not March 2nd or tomorrow.

The reason why we were not around for the closing of the electoral register was because we were not really around at that time – we wish we were as we would have done something appropriate at that time, still waiting until April 2nd for our big push to get people out to vote though! The register is a massive issue, but remember you can still be added to the register up until 15 days before polling – admittedly it is complicated and is something we will address as soon as we are ready.

The whole idea only began to take proper shape as the register was closing. November, December and January have been spent conducting extensive research into non-voting in Ireland and how to tackle it using experience and evidence from abroad.

As for the job postings, they were for the benefit of a number of student union officers around the country, who we have been holding meetings with recently. The website is only up in a highly limited and ugly-duckling form. Those jobs will be advertised elsewhere and the closing date extended by some weeks – provided we grow our funds – we are afterall running on very little at this point.

The whole campaign is dependent on funding continuing to increase and that means finding people who see beyond partisan confines and are prepared to put much needed money into something very worthwhile.

I would be very interested in meeting with you. Just drop me an email. The criticism is much needed – it helps us zone in on important questions that we need to answer.

Talk soon,

Paddy