Ian Paisley MP has questioned the Chief Electoral Officer for NI about the consultation report on the future of electoral offices.
He said, “This report is loaded against the continuation of local electoral offices across Northern Ireland. It has a thread running through it that a number of staff should recognise that their jobs are on the line and they will find that the local councils in NI are going to be trained and employed to do this work.
I do not accept the financial threat to the offices. Under questioning the Chief Electoral Officer could not give a detailed breakdown of the financial reasons for his projected deficit and has now undertaken to produce a separate financial report for the NIAC.
This report is so incomplete, I believe it is not an acceptable consultation. It is loaded to a predisposed position to close offices and employ councils to do his former staff’s work.
The fact that his office will be centred in Belfast and the rest of NI will get a junior service, is not acceptable.”