Residents in a flats complex of about 60 units in Dublin's inner city were turned away from their polling station yesterday after Dublin City Council accidentally deleted them from the register of electors.
The residents of two blocks of local authority flats on York Street near St Stephen's Green, who were on the register, were removed because of a "clerical error", the city council said yesterday.
The error related to the council's regeneration programme for the York Street area.
A number of older blocks of flats on the street had been demolished to make way for a new social housing development.
When these addresses were removed from the register, the remaining blocks not scheduled for demolition were also removed.
The error came to light only yesterday morning when several tenants of the flats tried to vote at the Whitefriar Street polling station and were told by staff that their addresses did not appear on the register.
"We put our hands up on this one. The regeneration works in the area did lead to confusion as regards to which blocks were on the register, but the matter was quickly resolved," Seán de Brún, head of the council's franchise section, said.
By 11am the council had put in place a system to allow any residents of the two blocks who could prove their identity and address to be entered on the supplementary register.
"I allocated an extra official to the polling station and told a local priest in the area, so by word of mouth anyone who had been turned away earlier will have been made aware that they could come back and go on the supplementary register," Mr de Brún said.
He said he could not allocate staff to call to each of the flats but said that there had only been about 40 voters from the flats on the original register and so it was likely that anyone who did want to vote was made aware of the situation.
Local Sinn Féin candidate Daithí Doolan said he had received calls from a number of the voters who were turned away and had called to each of the flats in the complex yesterday.
"I do applaud the city council for their speedy response but this was a huge blunder and very embarrassing for the council and I would have serious concerns about other people who may have been removed from the register in error."
Mr de Brún said his staff in the franchise section were inundated with calls yesterday from people who arrived at polling stations to discover they were not on the register.
However, it was too early to determine which situations were due to the council's error, he added, and which due to people "forgetting" to apply in time to be added to the register.
