Before moving the adjournment of the debate last night I commented on the fact that the time was ripe for a completely fresh examination of the duties of Deputies, both in this House and outside it. An opportunity for such a discussion occurs once every 12 years and surely the time available should be used for a reasoned discussion, so that, in the period ahead, the maximum amount of useful legislation will be enacted and, at the same time, the electorate generally will not suffer from lack of representation.
Other Deputies have already spoken on the question of the size of the membership of the House. There are various views on this matter and it would appear that complaints at the moment are due to a conflict in the minds of various people as to what the real duties of public representatives, or members of this House, should be. Listening to the Taoiseach yesterday evening, I felt that his idea of public representation was that a Deputy was elected mainly for the purpose of listening to grievances throughout the length and breadth of rural constituencies, or in the limited confines of a Dublin constituency, depending on which part of the country he is elected to represent. That was his main function. Consequently, if the people were to get proper attention in this matter of having their grievances listened to, it would be necessary to have very large representation.
That was one part of the case which was made. If it is accepted as one of the ideals of public representation, then there is no doubt it is essential that we should have at least 150 Deputies, if not more, to deal with those grievances. As a matter of fact, judging by the number of letters and grievances I receive—and I feel I am overworked in the amount of correspondence I have to deal with—if that is the experience of other Deputies, we should be asking for another 50 members to ease our work.
I feel that approach is wrong. I believe the more time spent by a Deputy in examining grievances, 50 per cent. of which are not real grievances, the less time he can devote to the consideration of legislation and the study of Bills. Consequently, the work of this House is neglected through a lack of attention on the part of the majority of Deputies or— should I put it this way?—the consideration of Bills and legislation is left in the hands of a limited few. If, as I say, that is the outlook so far as a Deputy is concerned, if his duties are considered to be mainly those of a grievance officer, why do we not do as they do in Sweden and appoint a grievance officer in every constituency, if necessary, or take from the Civil Service a liaison officer who will be quite independent, who will listen to the grievances of people in connection with old age pensions and other such matters, and iron out the difficulties between those people and the various Departments. That is the work Deputies are doing at the moment.
In the various constituencies where there are three, four or five Deputies, we have, in many cases, the same constituent trying out the three, four or five Deputies. That may keep these Deputies on their feet but my experience is that, of the 3, 4 or 5, the brunt of the work will in the long run lie on the shoulders of one or two. Some Deputies may say: "There is a strong case for a single-seat constituency." The pinning of responsibility on each Deputy may be a strong case for a single-seat constituency or for the transferable vote but we are not discussing the transferable vote or single-seat constituency.
My line of approach is this. I shall take County Galway as an example. I believe that in a county like Galway six or seven Deputies will do as much work, and do it as efficiently as the present number of nine allotted to that county. The basis on which we are getting nine in that county is that, according to the Taoiseach, we want to give a rural bias on the one hand, and, on the other hand, that parts of Galway, for instance, are so poor and the topographical position is such that it is a great hardship on Deputies to travel to the extreme ends of the county. Will the same situation not arise if you have ten or twelve Deputies in it? Would it not be more logical to give representation on the population basis and, where the constituencies are large, perhaps to give an allowance to the Deputies in those large constituencies to travel to various centres, if necessary, to meet their constituents? That would be a far more practical way of dealing with it.
The sad comment on all this is that in various areas in the West over the past 30 to 35 years the population has been going down year by year. It is a poor comment that now, while the population is going down and emigration is at a high rate, the one thing Fianna Fáil can promise is that they will not reduce the number of Deputies: "Whatever about the people going out of the depressed areas, we shall make sure there will be enough Fianna Fáil Deputies to look after the few who are left."
Again, I want to show how unrealistic this measure is as far as the western areas are concerned. The constituency I have the honour to represent, that is, Roscommon, is about to lose a seat under this Bill. I am satisfied with that arrangement. Let nobody be under the illusion that I am arguing on a personal basis in this matter. The Taoiseach and the Minister have said they are anxious for representation in rural Ireland and particularly in the West. I want to show how hollow these statements are and how they are trying to cod the public.
Roscommon is a rural area and a western constituency. It ranks for treatment under the Undeveloped Areas Act just the same as Galway and elsewhere. In addition, the topographical features are such that it is 75-80 miles long. It is a long, narrow county and it is a difficult one to travel, in many ways, as far as the area is concerned. It has many of the characteristics of the counties which have received special consideration from the Government. I admit that it did receive special consideration but not of the type that Galway and Donegal got. If the same yardstick, as far as population is concerned, were applied in Galway as has been applied in Roscommon then Galway would now be receiving a representation of seven Deputies instead of nine.
Roscommon has lost one seat and, on the basis of the statistics and figures of population, Galway should have seven Deputies. Why is it suggested that Galway should, under the circumstances, be looked upon as a rural area? According to the Taoiseach, he is looking for a rural bias. Is there anything less rural about Roscommon than there is about Galway? The figures I have given for Roscommon apply to Cavan and the situation I have outlined in Galway applies also in Donegal. Now can we see what has happened? The anxiety displayed by the Taoiseach for rural Ireland comes about because he feels that, in the areas mentioned, Donegal and Galway, if the reduction which should take place were made, Fianna Fáil would be sufferers to the extent of at least three seats. They cannot afford that—big and all as their majority may be now.
In order to put it across to the public that this is a measure designed to give a rural bias and to show how keen the present Taoiseach is on reviving rural Ireland and expanding it, he had the temerity to come into this House and suggest that the measure is for the protection of rural Ireland when, in fact, it was really for the protection of a number of Fianna Fáil Deputies. It is also a significant fact in relation to the area mentioned, that is, particularly West Galway and Donegal—places on the West coast— that the more depressed the area, the stronger the Fianna Fáil representation has been in the past ten or 12 years.
