I wonder whether the Minister intends to deal with the question I raised. I want to ask him whether he gave any thought to the question I raised in regard to the need for having quinquennial elections in relation to local government elections. I should like the Minister to answer that particularly having regard to the very interesting contribution by Deputy Moore, a member of the Minister's own Party who indicated that at the last municipal election only 25 per cent of the electorate voted. That shows the great amount of apathy which existed at that time. This is as a result of the apathy of his Party at the time of the last municipal elections six years ago.
I wonder now, in regard to this Bill, whether the Minister is not in the Bill indicating that he is likely to postpone the elections next year. The main question I asked the Minister was whether he had given consideration to the desirability of local electors having an opportunity of expressing their views as to how their local authority functions at more frequent intervals than they have been permitted to do in the past.
At one stage, as mentioned, local elections took place every three years. The electors had this advantage, that they were able to indicate by their votes, when those elections were taking place regularly every three years, their confidence or lack of confidence, in the people who were elected. It had the disadvantage, however, that the people who, for one reason or other, felt they no longer wanted to continue working on local authorities had the opportunity of not just resigning but of going forward instead of allowing other people anxious to take up that particular office to have this opportunity. Of course, having local authority elections at now increasingly longer intervals means that in areas where the co-option to fill vacancies operates, not by any agreement as it does in Dublin Corporation—the arrangement there, in the case of a vacancy, is that the Party from whom the deceased member came nominates a successor—the filling of a vacancy is by the decision of the majority of the elected councillors.
You can have the situation in such local authorities whereby the views of the electorate have been set at nought repeatedly because where a member of a particular local authority has resigned or died the vacancy is filled by co-option. In many cases the person so co-opted has, as a result of the majority decision of some group in the council, been from a different political party than the person whose decease or resignation caused the vacancy. This, to my mind, whether it happens as the result of a Fianna Fáil majority, a Fine Gael majority or a Labour majority, flies directly in the face of what should be proper representation on such bodies.
When you compare the period between local elections of five years, which is proposed in this Bill, with the possibility, as has been pointed out, that that is only the minimum period we, in this House, have little regard for the people whom we should be concerned about, in passing this Bill through the House. This, whether we like it or not, may be convenient to each one of us. I have no doubt it is. It is much more convenient for candidates who are members of local authorities not to have to face the electorate more often than every five years. It might be convenient for them, personally, not to have to face them for ten years. In fact, it might be very convenient for the elected members of local authorities not to have to face the electorate more often than five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten years. It might be very convenient for the person so elected but we are concerned not with the position of the elected representatives but basically with the local government electors; in other words, the citizens who have the right to vote, who have the right to express their views as to how their representatives do their work in a period of action.
I want to ask the Minister whether he has considered the decision to have local elections on a quinquennial basis good enough, particularly having regard to the fact that the quinquennial period is not the maximum. It has now been stretched to six years and it is proposed to stretch it to seven. It might, indeed, be stretched to eight years next year because of the factors which are making the Fianna Fáil Party very unpopular. The Minister next year might say: "We will have the elections in 1968." I do not know whether he has got that far but it is a possibility. I should like to know whether the Minister has considered this. I do not suppose he will change his mind at this stage. If so, I should like to point out some of the major problems faced by people who are elected on the basis of a three-year or five-year period. The constituencies they represent have in many cases grown completely out of proportion, having regard to the electorate they represent and in whose interests they are supposed to be working.
The Minister at this stage has not indicated that he is giving any thought to this matter. I do not know if he will do so between now and 1967 but it would be quite inequitable, in so far as the area I represent is concerned, to have the quinquennial elections take place in June, 1967 and people elected at that particular time in respect of areas where the proportion and the number of citizens between one area and another have varied so tremendously since the last election in 1960.
I do not know whether the Minister has given any thought to that particular problem and, finally, whether he has given any thought—and perhaps this might not be the time to raise it but it is a question that has to be raised—to the problem that if we are going to have an election next June the people who are to contest those elections, those who are prepared to serve the interests of local authorities, corporations, county councils, and so on, have no assistance whatsoever by way of free postage.
