I was dealing with some further points that had been raised by members of the Opposition although I suspect they were not raised really for the purpose of having the points elucidated but rather in pursuance of the efforts of the Opposition Parties to delay the passage of the Bill.
An Bille um an Tríú Leasú ar an mBunreacht, 1968: An Coiste (atógáil). Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1968: Committee Stage (resumed).
D'atógadh an díospóireacht ar an dtairiscint seo a leanas:
Gurb é an Sceideal, mar a leasaíodh é, is Sceideal den Bhille.
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Schedule, as amended, be the Schedule to the Bill.
(Cavan): That is the joke of the session.
The only other point I should deal with again in view of Deputy Fitzpatrick's insistence on it, although it has been dealt with several times already, is the reason why provision for the Constituency Commission is not in this Bill. If the Deputy remembers, it was originally the intention of the Government to put these proposals, which are designed to give a more rational system of election, in the form of one proposition to the people. At that stage there was a howl from the two Opposition Parties that this was far too complicated a matter for them to consider on the basis of one single proposition and in order to try to make it a little clearer for them we agreed to divide them into two separate proposals.
This meant, of course, that since we will be asking the people to adopt these two proposals, there had to be a decision to put this question of the requirement of the Constitution to establish a commission into one Bill or the other. It was deemed more appropriate to put it into the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill rather than into the Third Amendment Bill. It would be silly to put it into both. I think that if there is any particular importance attached to having the constituencies delineated by a commission rather than by the Government, the importance would be greater if a radical change were being made from the present system of multi-member constituencies to the proposed system of single-seat constituencies. For that reason it was decided to put the provision for a commission into the Fourth Amendment Bill rather than into this one.
The only other point to which I want to refer is that Deputy Cunningham, in speaking on this Bill, appeared to a certain extent to have misunderstood what I have said. I pointed out that in the area of Dublin and the area of Cork Borough taken together, the electorate formed 56 per cent of the total population, whereas in the remainder of the country the proportion of the electorate to the total population is 61 per cent and that that meant that a vote in the rural areas generally, if constituencies were divided strictly on a basis of mathematical accuracy of population per Deputy, would be nine per cent less effective in electing a Deputy than in the area of Dublin and Cork taken as a whole. I pointed out that that was the position which Deputy Fitzpatrick and his colleagues in his own benches and in the Labour benches are trying to maintain for some reason. I think Deputy Cunningham took this to mean that the difference was that the figures should have been 52 per cent in the Dublin-Cork area and 61 per cent in the remainder of the country but in fact it is 56 per cent as against 61 per cent.
This would mean that, in general, the system which the Opposition are trying to maintain would result in the average electorate per Deputy in urban areas being 11,200, that is, in the Dublin and Cork areas—as against 12,200 in the rural areas. I hope that when this campaign is in operation, Opposition Deputies will be prepared to explain to their constituents why it is that they want to maintain a position in which it would take more people in rural Ireland to elect a Deputy than in the urban areas. Needless to say, in individual constituencies the disparity will be much greater if the Opposition campaign succeeds.
For instance, in the present constituency of Dublin North-West the electorate, that is, the voters, comprise 50.96 of the total population, whereas in Donegal South-West they comprise 67.74 per cent of the electorate, so that if the present position, which requires constituencies to be delineated on the basis of the same number of the population per Deputy in each constituency, is maintained as a result of this campaign of Deputy Fitzpatrick, Deputy Harte, Deputy P. O'Donnell and other Opposition Deputies, then we will have the situation that in the constituency of Dublin North-West the electorate per Deputy will be 10,206, whereas in Donegal South-West it will take 13,567 voters to elect one Deputy. In Donegal North-East where the electorate is 62.5 per cent of the total population it will take 12,518 people to elect a Deputy as against the 10,206 in Dublin North-West. In the county of Donegal as a whole, with an electorate of 65.1 per cent of the total population, the number of voters per Deputy will be 13,038 as against 10,206.
I am just giving these figures for Donegal but they will be made available to the people for other constituencies also and I hope that both Deputy Harte and Deputy P. O'Donnell will be able to explain to the people of Donegal why it is that they want to have this differential in voting effectiveness given to the constituency of Dublin North-West as compared with the county of Donegal, and I hope that Deputy Fitzpatrick will be able to explain to the people of Cavan why it is that he wants to multilate the boundaries of County Cavan, although on the basis of the number of voters per Deputy, there is no reason whatever why that should be done because on the basis of the national average of voters per Deputy, County Cavan could retain its integrity as a three-seat constituency.
As I say, I have the suspicion that the other points raised were raised merely for the purpose of delaying the progress of this Bill through the House. Anything that was raised has been covered already, and since the answers to these things are already on the record, I do not want to delay the House unnecessarily by repeating them.
(Cavan): I certainly do not want to delay the House or to hold up the passage of these measures; I want to get them through the House and get them to the people. The Minister spent four hours yesterday evening dealing with the Schedule to the Third Amendment Bill, going laboriously through constituency after constituency, pouring out figures prepared under his jurisdiction by the Civil Service in an effort to confuse, not to clarify. When it came as far as the city of Dublin, which comprises the vast proportion of the population of this country, he dismissed it with a brush of his hand and said it was too complicated to deal with. I simply made the remark when replying to him that I thought he had dealt rather casually with the city of Dublin. In the course of his further remarks yesterday evening before he reported progress, he promised, or indeed, might I say, he threatened, to deal with Dublin as he had dealt with the other constituencies. He stood up today to continue his reply, and he got back to Donegal——
I think I brought Dublin into it.
(Cavan):——and did not mention Dublin. Yesterday evening I charged the Minister with introducing the Third Amendment for the purpose of gerrymandering, for the purpose of rigging our electoral laws and, with his majority in the House, of arranging constituencies to suit himself and to suit his pockets of supporters here and there in the country. I made that specific charge against him, and I based the argument in support of that charge on the fact that the Schedule to the Third Amendment, with which we are dealing now, contains no provision for a commission to arrange the constituencies. I challenged the Minister to explain to this House and to the country why he included in the Fourth Amendment a commission, with its shortcomings, to arrange the constituencies if proportional representation is abolished, and why in this Third Amendment he made no provision for such commission in the event of the Fourth Amendment being rejected by the people and the Third Amendment being carried. I accused him, and I accuse him again now, of doing it because he knows that with a tolerance of one-sixth, he will have enough elbow room to gerrymander the constituencies in a way that will give his vote much more strength than it deserves. The Minister tries to say that this Third Amendment is not an important one, that the change being made is slight.
I did not say it was not important.
(Cavan): If this Third Amendment is accepted by the people, it will mean that in one area 16,667 people will be entitled to have a TD representing them in this House, and in another area it will take 23,333 people to elect a TD. I say that is undemocratic and unfair. I asked the Minister to explain to this House why he would not entrust the arrangement of constituencies to a commission consisting of three Government Deputies, three Opposition Deputies, and an impartial, independent chairman.
We are proposing to do that.
(Cavan): The Minister is being dishonest, grossly dishonest.
The proposal is there for you.
(Cavan): I am asking the Minister why he excluded that from the Third Amendment, and when I reminded him about it last night he said: “Why did you not ask me a question and I would have explained?” Today when he stands up his explanation is that the change proposed in the Fourth Amendment is more radical than that in the Third Amendment, and that is why they put the commission into the Fourth Amendment and did not put it into the Third.
The Minister knows perfectly well— and that is why he is delaying this Bill through the House—that the Fourth Amendment has no hope whatever of being accepted by the people, but he has some sort of vague hope that he might get the Third Amendment through and he wants to retain for himself with his majority in the House the right to gerrymander, the right to carve up the constituencies in such a way as to give himself and his Party far more representation in this House than they are entitled to. He wants by that measure not to stimulate interest in public life, not to stimulate political thought, but to kill it by this unfair gerrymandering of constituencies. He wants to ensure that after the next general election he will have such a majority attained in this unfair, undemocratic, and grossly dishonest way that he will drive people out of political parties and create here a one-party dictatorship. There is no fear of that if the electoral system is preserved as it is at the present time. There is no fear of it if the constituencies are fairly delineated.
I intend to hammer at this obvious attempt by the Minister and the Government to hold on to what I refer to as the Minister's safety value in the Third Amendment. He wants to retain to himself, with his majority, the right to arrange the constituencies, having given himself this one-sixth tolerance, which is entirely unnecessary and extremely dangerous, especially when in the hands of a political Party presided over by a ruthless, dishonest political boss in the person of the Minister for Local Government. I intend to hammer at this particular aspect of this Third Amendment because it is by far the most significant provision in it. If the commission had not been thought of, if it had not been mentioned, it would not have been so obvious——
I think the Deputy wants the two proposals back together again.
(Cavan): I want the commission, shortcomings though it may have, to advise on the constituencies as they are to be arranged under the Third Amendment, with the Fourth Amendment defeated, as if they were to be arranged under the Fourth Amendment. I have got no satisfactory explanation from the Minister, nor has the House or country and I do not know whether the Minister intends to go on giving irrelevant figures——
You demanded that I talk——
(Cavan): I demanded that if you are dealing with Donegal, you should also deal with Dublin city.
All right; I will, if you insist.
(Cavan): I am commenting on the fact that the Minister dealt with the constituencies he wanted to deal with, the ones he thinks meet his case, but he has failed to deal with Dublin city. Instead of the Minister behaving as he is behaving and trying to put off the evil day, hoping that something will turn up to avoid the referendum, he should acknowledge the fact that public opinion has already rejected these measures and he should withdraw.
I wish to make just two or three observations on the Minister's very lengthy speech. In the course of that speech, I could only extract one sentence with which I am in complete agreement. He said that it was no part of the Government's or of Fianna Fáil's purpose in sponsoring the measure before the House to advance the political fortunes of Fine Gael. I am in complete agreement with that. Nobody but a fool would imagine that there was any purpose in bringing in this Bill in present circumstances other than to advance the political fortunes of Fianna Fáil. Before I make my other observations, I want to clear up one matter in order that it be put on the records of the House.
In the course of his observations, to which I took exception by way of interruption, the Minister stated that the judgment in the High Court, in regard to the further redistribution of constituencies before the next general election, came at the behest of Fine Gael. He had, I am glad to say, the grace to withdraw the word "behest", but at the same time he did suggest that because Mr. O'Donovan, the plaintiff in the action, and his solicitor, Deputy Ryan, were members of Fine Gael it was on behalf of the Fine Gael Party. I want to place it on record that that action was brought on behalf of Mr. John O'Donovan because of his own intellectual conviction that the Bill was unconstitutional, in which he was upheld by Mr. Justice Budd. He took the action at his own personal risk and if he had lost it, as a lot of people thought he was likely to, he would have had to pay the very heavy costs out of his own pocket. There was no question of Party funds being involved. He brought that action as an individual believing that he was right, and subsequently he was proved to be right, but he took it at his own personal risk and on his own personal conviction. Fine Gael had no hand, act or part in supporting him in that action by way of monetary contribution or otherwise. I hope I have laid that ghost for all time.
I listened to the Minister reading extract after extract from various speeches made by Deputies from the several Opposition Parties here, pointing out the infirmities of the Constitution which led to the difficult situation which then existed as a result of Mr. Justice Budd's decision. The Minister said that in introducing this Bill he was complying with the wishes of the Opposition Parties. No statement which he made in the whole course of his long statement had less grounds for validity than that. Everybody knows he is not bringing it in for that purpose, but, as I said, in order to further the political fortunes of the Fianna Fáil Party. I gather that he stated that he was complying with the wishes of the Opposition Parties in bringing in the Bill and his object in reading extracts from speeches made by Deputy Norton and others pointing out the infirmities which existed in the Constitution and pointing out that something had to be done by way of amendment to the Constitution, was to suggest that this Bill was in conformity with the wishes of those who objected to the provisions of the Bill and the problem facing them as a result of the judgment of the High Court.
As I understand the Bill, the very objectionable principle embodied in it is that certain sections of the community will, if the Bill gets the benediction of the people, have greater representation in the national parliament than other sections of the community. That is the fundamental principle: that is the objectionable principle. I challenge the Minister, with all his ingenuity, with all the resources he has and all the resources for misrepresentation at his disposal, to justify in any way the suggestion he made in the course of his speech that Deputy Norton, or any other Deputy who spoke in the way he quoted last night, in any way sponsored or suggested, or in any way gave their benediction to that objectionable principle. They pointed out that there was an infirmity in the Constitution as a result of Mr. Justice Budd's judgment, that there was a problem facing any Government in regard to the redistribution of seats. They never said that the problem was to be met in the way it is to be met in this Bill, giving certain citizens greater representation.
Tell us some other way in which it could be done.
This is flouting the principle of one man, one vote. There is nothing in any of the speeches justifying the suggestion the Minister made. It was because of this that I rose to speak, to put this on the records of the House. I would agree that there was a problem but the problem was such that it was a national problem requiring national consideration and a national solution, by agreement, if possible. What the Minister should have done was to consult the various sections of the House and obtain their suggestions as to how the problem could be solved.
That was done.
I would have thought that if the Minister were really in earnest in his suggestion and not merely making the hypocritical statement that he was complying with the wishes of the Opposition Parties, he would have consulted them beforehand and that the people in all Parties could have availed of their intellect and experience in obtaining an agreed solution of that undoubted problem. We are faced now with this Bill which embodies that objectionable principle and it is wrong to suggest that the Opposition Parties were in agreement with that principle or that it was to comply with those wishes that this objectionable principle was embodied in the Bill. I would have thought that consultation between the Parties was more desirable than ever in a Bill of this kind. There was undoubtedly a constitutional infirmity to be solved and what the Government should have been doing was finding out the best way of solving the problem and not adopting the procedure which they have adopted of bringing in this measure, intending to put the Bill through by their majority, without consultation with any of the Parties because their political interests might be affected by the embodiment of this objectionable principle.
Deputy Fitzpatrick in the course of his observations, to which I listened last night, made charges—undoubtedly they were well-founded—that the purpose of the Bill was to advance the political fortunes of Fianna Fáil and that the really objectionable feature of the Bill, apart from the fundamental objection to its principle was that, if the Government were fortunate enough, —we would say, unfortunate enough, from the national point of view—to get this measure enacted, then they would be in a position to rig the constituencies in their own favour and they would undoubtedly do so. While I agree with what Deputy Fitzpatrick said, I should like to put the matter on a more general and a sounder basis; I would say that no parliament should put into the hands of any government the powers that are enshrined in this Bill because no government should be put in the position of being tempted to rig constituencies. I am not enough of a hypocrite to say that, if Fine Gael were in office, we would not attempt to rig the constituencies; we should be less than human if we did not. Undoubtedly any government, faced with such a temptation, would naturally and inevitably endeavour to rig constituencies, within the law, of course, in their own favour.
Those are powers that ought not to be given to any government as a matter of high principle, high principle with which this Government in office at the moment is in no way concerned. That is what I object to; the powers in this Bill should not be given—first of all, to give people greater representation in the national parliament, abolish the principle of one man, one vote, and also facilitate, in order to achieve political advantage over political opponents, the power, the undoubtedly unjust and irrational power, of rigging constituencies in their own favour.
These are the main objections I have to this Bill. I mentioned them in the course of the speech I made on Second Reading. I referred to what is known in America as the "cow vote" and to the fact that what is endeavoured to be done here failed to be achieved in the United States of America.
We will only have the cows, if the Deputy has his way.
(Cavan): Fianna Fáil introduced the cows but they did not provide a market for their milk. That is where they slipped up.
I should like briefly to reject the attempt made by Deputy Costello to interpret my late father's speeches.
I never made any such attempt.
The Deputy has a tendency to quote my father and interpret him.
I merely answered quotations that were quoted yesterday.
I do not think any of us can say now what opinions my father, if he were alive, would hold today. We can only project what we think he might think. I certainly know that my father regarded this action by Senator O'Donovan as a mistake and he thought it would give rise to more problems that it would solve. Actually that seems to be the position now and I should like to put that on record. As a Deputy who represented a rural constituency and who had the interests of rural constituents at heart, he would not like the problems of rural constituents swamped in this House by the problems of urban-oriented Deputies; that is the position in which my father was, and I am sure that he would look with favour on a Bill which gives tolerance to rural areas and anyone who thinks otherwise is less than fair. We should speak for ourselves and not indulge in interpretations of speeches made by people who are no longer here.
Now, much as I dislike interpreting Deputy Costello, or anyone else, I cannot sit here and listen to people trying to lend the cloak of respectability to their arguments. If Deputy Costello wants to quote, then he should have his facts right. I was not here during the whole of yesterday. Perhaps the Minister explained why he chose to base seats on the basis of population rather than on the basis of the electorate, but, looking at the answer to a reply given to a question put down by Deputy Collins, it would appear that, had this been fixed on the basis of the electorate, only 19 constituencies would have been affected by the 5 per cent tolerance, which was acceptable to Mr. Justice Budd, but, on the basis of population, 24 constituencies would be affected and it would obviously be much better if the basis had been fixed on the electorate. Would the Minister like to explain the reason for choosing population rather than the electorate?
When the Bill of 1961 was going through this House, Deputy Corish mentioned my constituency and instanced the fears he had at that time of the results of carving up portions of three counties. I can assure the Deputy his fears at that time have been fully justified. Remembering the shifting of population that has taken place since then, that change in the population means that every constituency requires revision. I know from my own experience that the people in Westmeath and Meath feel out of it to a certain extent. Most people would prefer to have this fixed on a county basis or on an administrative area basis. My opposite number in Fine Gael seems to have given up the ghost and handed over to Deputy L'Estrange.
(Cavan): There is some talk of the Deputy moving into Meath. Is there any truth in that?
I am tolerably happy in Kildare.
He is not running into the city, like the Fine Gael Deputies.
(Cavan): He is running anyway.
I know that Labour actually published a notice that the Senator in that area was to look after Westmeath. The question is: should this situation be allowed to occur in every constituency? My advice is that we should have some consideration for the people and give them the proper tolerance. It is not a very big one, but it is a fair margin and it would obtain in a number of constituencies. It is a tolerance which would give the people the chance of keeping within recognised units. The single-member constituencies would be the ideal. I know that from experience because I live in the exact centre of the constituency I represent, Meath, Westmeath and portion of Kildare. I am quite close to everybody. In the multi-seat constituency, a representative could be living miles away and he could never be truly representative of his whole constituency and portions of his constituency would inevitably be neglected. A typical example was the question in the last election of who would be the candidate for Longford-Westmeath. When I was going around the constituency meeting delegates, I found that it was very difficult to get them to talk about their own candidature; they were more concerned about the Longford-Westmeath position.
I would implore the Opposition to think twice about what they are doing in opposing tolerance and the single-member constituency. I would ask them to give the people a chance to have administrative areas, such as county council areas. Otherwise, these areas will be neglected. There is sitting beside me here a colleague who is in much the same boat as I. I imagine the position in Waterford would be the same as in my constituency. If my colleague had not been elected there, that area would be completely neglected and the people there would have nobody to look after them. The people have been used to administrative areas such as county council areas and like to have their TDs and county councillors all in one area. It seems strange that in a local election a person would vote Meath or Westmeath while in a Dáil election he would vote Kildare.
Consider what would happen. We have seen from the reply to the question put down by Deputy Collins the number of constituencies that would be carved up. Kildare is but one example. There are others—Sligo-Leitrim, South Tipperary——
Longford-Westmeath.
That has always been the case in Longford-Westmeath.
Why should that be? They are two separate counties.
(Cavan): There is Laois-Offaly.
The fact that it has been recognised——
You insist that it must be.
We did not. Fianna Fáil have been in power for 20 years.
You insist on retaining these rigid provisions.
The constituency has been served by an excellent Deputy for 25 years now.
And he is anxious to get rid of his colleagues.
Perhaps you know things which he does not know. You have means of knowing.
He is not the only one who has a colleague who is anxious to get rid of him, as you know—two colleagues.
With the tolerance, even some of those areas that have been traditionally dual county constituencies would be able to have their own representatives. Having had the experience of dealing with three counties in my constituency, I know how difficult it is and I also know the feelings of the people in these cut-away areas. They would dearly love to have county boundaries retained as far as possible. That is why I ask the Opposition to think twice about tolerance and the single-seat constituency and to give a chance to the people to elect their representatives on a county basis. If the single-seat proposal were carried, it would be possible to fit it into the respective counties but you would need tolerance in order that it would have a chance of working. Otherwise, there will be tremendous carving up. Mr. Justice Budd gave no great tolerance. In order to get 20,000 votes — the national average is 20,028 — there would have to be a great carving up and the people would not know how to get to their representative. The people should have the say and they should be accommodated. It is with that in mind that we are bringing in the two Amendments of the Constitution, providing for constituencies on a county basis and also that TDs will be accessible to the people they represent. In the case of most Members of this Dáil, the people do not travel that far in order to see them. A Deputy has to go out to meet his constituents at the far end of his constituency and must have a centre or office in these places in order to give his constituents an opportunity of meeting him. We are giving the people a chance to have a representative who is within easy reach of their homes.
The choice which the Minister is offering the country is whether we are going to change from having a democratic Constitution to a geographic Constitution. That is the simple situation. This is done and all these arguments are produced, as Deputy John A. Costello said and as everybody knows, without any of us here saying it, in order to buttress the failing popularity of the Government Party, to try to effect a rescue operation, not upon Fine Gael, but upon themselves.
From observation of the voting trends even in the by-elections which have been boasted of by the Taoiseach, by-elections which were due to the fact that, unfortunately, we lost so many colleagues in the last couple of years, it would seem obvious that the natural progress of events is reducing the strength of the Government Party and is making for greater strength in so far as the Opposition Parties are concerned. I shall not go into the reasons for that. It is, probably, to some extent true that there is a pendulum effect in operation in every democracy and a pendulum effect in operation in so far as every Deputy is concerned. I should like to bring to the notice of Deputies who have been talking in this House as if in applying their minds to this problem they were thinking about their own little corner, that membership of this House is very transient, that we live by the most insecure and casual of employments. There is no guarantee whatsoever of the three "Fs" for the TD.
Could we get back to the Bill or would that confuse the Deputy?
It is a matter for the Chair to decide.
It is only a suggestion.
This House is founded upon the principle of free speech and orderly speech and it is not for Deputy Booth, with his authoritarian mind, which may operate very effectively outside this House, to try to impose it on the Members here. Let him go and exercise that somewhere else. We will not have it here.
(Cavan): He read the Bill for the first time yesterday.
May I suggest that it is not in order to make a Second Reading speech on Committee Stage? We are now dealing with the Schedule.
What about the Minister's three and a half hour's speech on the amendment?
Let us get back to the Schedule, as amended.
I was saying that the mistake is being made that Deputies— not all of them but too many of them —are looking at this whole Bill and have looked at it entirely as it relates to their own personal positions. This is not as it should be. We are here tampering with the fundamental instrument of our liberties, the Constitution, which will affect not alone us for our short time in this House, and indeed upon this earth, but will affect the Irish nation for as long as it continues its existence, be that long or short. The struggle for the nation to continue becomes more difficult with each year this Government exist. Looking at it from the point of view of the general welfare and good, it seems to me there is inherent in the Schedule a departure from the principle of democratic representation, that is to say, all sections of the community having the right to equal representation in the Dáil based on their numbers, and with no section having advantage over another except in so far as they are numerically superior, that there are more of them in the country than there are of some other section.
That is the basis and fundamental of freedom, and when we depart from it, we are proceeding along a road which may well wind up with the absolute domination of our whole nation's future by a small power clique. That is the trend and it is something which should not be tolerated by Dáil Éireann. Tolerance, they call it. Tolerance, how are you! Tolerance for what? We are asked to vote tolerance for dictatorship, for single-Party rule. That is what is being sought here, not tolerance as between the west and the east of Ireland. We are being asked to tolerate something which is insufferable.
The Minister wasted the time of the House last evening reciting, if one is to judge by what one reads in the papers, what was said by former Members of this House. I have listened to Deputy Norton's attack upon Deputy J.A. Costello——
Correction—not attack.
It sounded to me like a petulant attack.
You are the master of petulance.
It sounded to me like a piece of calculated impudence and nothing else.
This House was founded on free speech. Do not try to take it away.
I am exercising it and I will continue to do so.
You are not at Party meetings now.
Do not get petulant——
If Deputy Dunne forces me, I will make him regret it. I do not want to do it.
If Deputy Norton threatens me, he will regret it.
Do not think you have a monopoly of venom. You have not.
I was saying, when I was so petulantly interrupted by those in politics who are not able to take it but who are prepared to dish it out, that Deputy Costello, I would suggest to the House, is one of the outstanding statesmen this country has seen.
Coalition.
Do you disagree with that, because if you do you have a damn cheek.
This new-found friendship !
I have respect for integrity wherever it is to be found.
Will the Deputy come back to the Schedule, as amended?
He is praising Coalition statesmen. Leave him alone.
I always praise a good man and I always will. When you are as long a Member of this House as I am, maybe you too can afford to speak your mind.
I have never failed to speak my mind.
You have never spoken at all. You cannot change that.
Indeed I have. I have spoken before and will again.
I am glad I have excited some response from you and from those about you. If I can return to the subject matter——
We are not stopping you.
You are trying to deflect my thoughts now. It seems to me that the whole exercise of this Bill and of this Schedule, to which I am addressing myself, is simply a stunt to try to save the political lives of many members of the Fianna Fáil Party who otherwise face a bleak prospect. It is an unworthy one. A comment was made about Deputies trying to get rid of their colleagues. I would not like to think that the Minister is trying to get rid of Deputy Burke or Deputy Foley. I think it would not become me to make an allegation such as that but there is a kind of appearance on it that he wants to get out of the same area as Deputy Burke.
There is an appearance that Deputy Dunne wants to get out of it too.
I would draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that Deputy Burke and I have pursued a policy of co-existence for over 20 years, long before he became a Member of this House, and when he on two separate occasions sought to intrude upon our privacy, he was repulsed in two successive elections. Therefore, it cannot be said that I harbour any feelings of rejection as far as Deputy Burke is concerned. On the other hand, I would suspect that the Minister might have secret longings to see him relegated to some other area so that the Minister might gain a greater assurance of being returned here.
I see by the reports of the Minister's speech that he spoke about distribution and securing representation. It would appear to me that the principle is to secure representation for depopulated areas at the expense of the urban and built-up areas. In simple terms, that is nothing more than a robbing of Dublin city and county in the main and other cities and towns in order to create artificial TDs for areas where people do not exist. This may be supported by those Deputies who think that the Dáil is made for their convenience, and that the Dáil should be a kind of reflection of the physical configuration of the country, but that is not so. In these times—and let us endeavour to drag the reactionaries who are pursuing this line into the Sixties and Seventies—it is people who count, individuals. More and more and more they are counting. They used not to count of course when Government machines could deploy them at will to secure their own ends and marshal them in voting groups and blocks to secure the return of countless faceless men throughout the country. That day has gone. With the advance of enlightenment and knowledge, people are thinking more. It is the people who must have a say in the election of members of Parliament and every individual, whether he be a farmer, a farm labourer, a road worker——
Or a new-born baby.
—— a railway worker, a corporation worker, a worker in the motor car assembly industry, a building trade worker or a worker with his hands or brains, has an equal right to say what kind of Government we will have. This so-called tolerance seeks to rob him of that and create a special privileged clique, for no other purpose than to prop up in office a Government who are imposing themselves upon the people. Let me say this. No one enjoys a general election less than I do. I do not regard a general election as something to look forward to. I have had enough of them in my time to know that they can be an agonising experience, but my personal feelings do not come into it. A duty is imposed upon us here when we become Members of the Dáil. If we had a general election now or at any other time within the next 12 months, I have no doubt whatever that Fianna Fáil would not come back as the majority Party.
Hear, hear, and well they know it.
There was never a clearer indication that we would: six out of seven. We could not ask for better.
You lost progressively all the time.
(Interruptions.)
Boys whistling passing the graveyard.
We heard that before.
We know what Deputy Dowling heard in Garryowen and we are glad to see that he returned safely from there, because we look upon his misguided efforts with some degree of charity. It imposes a strain upon our charity, but from long association with my colleague in Dublin, I have charity to give away.
Has the Deputy any votes to give away?
Yes, if you need some. Look at the last returns for the local elections. They tell their own tale. One is not usually generous with things like votes when the drum sounds for battle. That is natural enough. These disorderly interruptions have thrown me off the point I was making.
(Cavan): It is like a Fianna Fáil Party meeting at the moment. I hear they have been very stormy recently.
I would not know about Fianna Fáil Party meetings. I never attended one, thank God.
You do not see us staggering out looking haggard at night. We never have a vote of confidence in the Fianna Fáil Party.
Could we get back to the Schedule to the Bill?
(Cavan): The Minister has been sent in to hold this up until the row in his Party about the referendum is settled.
Who is holding it up? The Deputy has demanded the details about Dublin.
(Cavan): The Minister promised that yesterday, and he is sidestepping it again today.
I have to comply with the Deputy's request. It would be discourteous not to.
(Cavan): I am glad to see the Minister so obedient.
I am guilty of as much sin as any human being, not alone in the country but in Dáil Éireann, but I have never attended a meeting of the Fianna Fáil Party. At least that is a score on which I do not have to ask for Divine forgiveness.
I want to impress upon the Minister that he is not getting away with this pretence in which he has been indulging over the past several hours that this tolerance is for the good of the country. It is not. This tolerance, in inverted commas, which he talks about it simply tolerance of Fianna Fáil who, to my mind, do not really care about the people or where they live, so long as they themselves are in office, and the camp followers who will never be on the Front Bench, fondly though some of them cherish thoughts of such loftiness, know of course that their existence in this House similarly is predicated upon membership of the Fianna Fáil Party. It is a diminishing return because we are living in different times. Limerick was an indication of that. It is obvious that there is no support for this idea among the people. Unfortunately by even contributing to this debate, I am aiding and unwittingly abetting the Minister in his objective, which is to postpone the evil day. Therefore I will sit down and let the business go ahead.
I have been very disappointed with the contributions from the Opposition benches; yet I am not unduly surprised. Deputy Fitzpatrick and Deputy Costello are not people who indulge in abuse just for the sake of it. When they do indulge in abuse of the Minister, it is perfectly clear to me that their only reason is: when you cannot attack the argument, attack the character of the man or attack his motives. A clearer indication of a bankruptcy of ideas could not be given. The Minister has been criticised for his very long and detailed speech, but he has been most criticised by those who did not bother to listen to what he was saying, or who did not bother to try to find out for themselves why he was saying it.
(Cavan): We knew. He was passing the time until the Fianna Fáil Party made up their minds on the referendum.
I am making sure that the Deputy knows. He attributes filthy motives because he has a filthy mind. If he would confine himself to facts, he would be much better employed.
(Cavan): This Bill was circulated months ago and Deputy Booth had not read it up to yesterday.
If Deputy Fitzpatrick would kindly keep his mouth shut and listen, he might be better employed.
(Cavan): Does the Deputy assure me he has read the Bill? He had not read it up to yesterday.
In view of the fact that the Deputy has been given assurances time and again on numerous points and still has not accepted those assurances, I will not add to them.
(Cavan): At least the Deputy is truthful.
It should not take anyone a long time to read this Bill. It is very clear.
(Cavan): The Deputy thought yesterday that there was a commission in it. There is not.
He probably read it last night.
The trouble with Deputy Fitzpatrick is that he is either dishonest or stupid. I think he is stupid.
This is objective discussion now?
If there is any question of throwing abuse, we can throw it too.
(Cavan): The only person doing that is the Deputy.
Deputy Dunne sickens me with his talk about faceless men. He is a typical example of a faceless man.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Booth, without interruption.
They all interrupted me.
I know Deputy Dunne's technique. He accused me of trying to hit the headlines with something I said yesterday. At least, if I said it, it was in order. I do not try to hit the headlines by getting myself ejected from the House.
On the question of tolerance, I know this question of mathematical accuracy which Deputy Costello was trying to deal with. Let us get down to hard facts. How are we to get this absolute mathematical equality? Nobody has produced any answer there. It is a physical impossibility. It is also accepted in the Constitution that constituency boundaries must be revised on the basis of the population as ascertained at the last preceding census. By the time the results of the census have been ascertained and published, they are already out of date. Thousands of people have died. Maybe hundreds of people have left the country. Thousands of babies have been born. You will not get mathematical accuracy in 1968 based on the 1966 census because a lot of people have been born or died in the intervening period.
There is only one way to get mathematical accuracy, that is, by working on the electorate only, treating the country as one constituency and voting on a purely Party ticket and not for individual candidates. This is the system which has been practised in Europe and in many countries and which has consistently led to disaster.
Therefore, instead of dealing with high-falutin' theory, we are trying to deal with the hard facts of life, one of which is that there is a tremendous variation throughout the country in the proportion of those of the population who are electors. In certain constituencies, a high proportion of the total population are electors. In others, it is a comparatively low proportion. That is a thing which can throw out mathematical accuracy altogether unless you say that constituencies should be redrawn purely on the basis of the electoral list. I can imagine the howl that would come from the Opposition if we were to suggest any such thing. We should be told we were rigging the electoral lists, that we were bribing those employed to make up the electoral register.
It is far more fair to base the constituencies on the population and not just on the electors because those constituencies should stand for more than four or five years and, consequently, you are basing them not only on the actual electors at the time but on the potential electors, those who will be electors during the ensuing eight or ten years.
Suppose they go for employment to London or Birmingham or somewhere else in Britain and remain there for some time?
These muttered comments by Deputy Dunne are so typical of his deliberate ignorance of the whole problem that——
This is a further objective comment.
Dispassionate.
A clinical approach.
We are dealing, therefore, with the only fair basis of work on the delineation of the constituency boundaries, that is, the basis of the number of the population in the area. However, it cannot ever be, and never has been, mathematically accurate.
It has been said that the people have no wish for this Bill and, particularly, for the provisions of the Bill as set out in the Schedule. The whole issue is far too complicated for the average man-in-the-street to have any opinion on it, good, bad or indifferent. The average man-in-the-street certainly is not losing any night's sleep at the moment by reason of the extraordinary discrepancies between voting strengths in various areas at the present day.
I have not heard anybody in my constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown complain that he has not got enough Teachtaí Dála in his area even though, in that area, the electorate per Deputy exceeds the national average by 28.83. I have never met anyone in my area who feels himself in the slightest degree prejudiced by that.
This is what we are saying.
O.K. Then we shall leave it in a state where there is no equality at all——
It is the opposite of what Deputy Booth is saying.
Deputy Lindsay does not know the Party line. He does not know the Fine Gael Party line.
I know what it is in the west of Ireland and I shall tell it to you in a minute.
I should apologise to Deputy Lindsay. I should not blame him for not knowing the Fine Gael Party line as there are so many Party lines in Fine Gael.
(Cavan): Deputy Booth is thinking of the dog-fighting that goes on in the Fianna Fáil Party.
Deputy Lindsay has said the electorate do not feel in the slightest degree prejudiced if the number of people in their area exceeds the national average per Deputy.
I did not say any such thing.
Perhaps the Deputy would take it back?
No.
Does the Deputy want the present position altered in any way?
I did not say that.
He did.
(Cavan): Deputy Booth should sit down and let Deputy Norton get on with his amendment.
There are incredible discrepancies at the moment and nobody is worried about them outside this House.
Deputy Lindsay is: he is coming to Dublin.
I can assure the Minister there will not be another Mayo-man on his back in County Dublin.
Dublin city.
I should like to hear Deputy Booth speak on the Schedule, as amended.
Is the Minister not happy with his Mayo relationship in County Dublin?
Very happy.
Deputy Booth, please.
I am sorry if I interrupted a private conversation.
(Cavan): Deputy Booth is killing time as well as anybody else.
The fact remains that nobody outside this House is at all disturbed by the fact that there are wide discrepancies in voting strength throughout the country at the present day because nobody feels himself adversely affected in any way. The only reason we on this side of the House are concerned about it is because we know that, in itself, it would be a breach of the Constitution if we were to allow it to go to another general election. We could not run another general election on that basis. It has to be altered whether or not we like it.
We have Deputy Lindsay with us. I hope he stays with us a little longer.
He agrees with us, then, that nobody feels himself in any way concerned about it but we are concerned about it on the constitutional issue. We must do it in some way. We must amend the whole procedure in some way so that it becomes workable simply because mathematical accuracy for any period is a physical impossibility. We have, therefore, suggested a tolerance of one-sixth up or down to deal with the changes which will undoubtedly occur from time to time.
Every sort of obscene motive is being attributed to us for doing this simply because there is no rational argument. Anybody who thinks it over quietly will find it obvious that you must have a certain amount of give and take to compensate for the different proportions in different constituencies of populations and electorates. You must make provision for migration from the rural to the urban areas and for changes in population, births, deaths and so on. We want a system which will give some stability in constituencies so that they will not be changed every five years. It is far better, if possible, that constituency boundaries should be retained for, I would say, up to ten years or more— the longer the better, because the longer the period, the more chance there is of getting a community spirit in the area and a proper relationship between the electorate and the elected representatives.
This is a matter that should be dealt with on its merits and not simply by ascribing dirty motives to the Government. It is an entirely destructive attitude on the part of those who say this Schedule is completely wrong and malicious and so on. If the Minister has challenged them before, I challenge them again now: can you think of any other way in which to consider a realistic basis of forming constituencies which will not be of a very temporary nature only? Can you think of any other basis which will take account of variations between electorate and total population? I certainly cannot, and I think the Minister was perfectly justified yesterday in showing what would happen in the main country constituencies if his proposal were defeated.
The urban constituencies are not as difficult in many ways unless you take them street by street or ward by ward. I do not think it will really worry city constituencies very much if there are slight alterations in their boundaries, nothing like the alterations in a country area, where a county boundary may be affected, because there is not the same close community spirit in any city as there is in the rural areas.
If the Minister is challenged to do it, I am sure he can do it, but I do not think there is much point in going through the various Dublin city and county constituencies, Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown, and coming up with a lot of absolute facts. That will not get us any great distance, but if the Opposition want it, I am sure the Minister would be only too glad to explain——
I should like to hear it.
Hear what?
He says he will be very glad if you will tell us what would happen in the Dublin constituencies.
I can discuss some of the innumerable possibilities.
Here we have something which, to my mind, exposes again the incredible inconsistency of the Opposition. We hear them saying: "Let us get this matter to the country quickly; let the Minister stop talking." Now they are saying he should keep telling us what may happen, start going into suppositions. How does that affect the issue? The issue now before the House is whether or not we are to have a system whereby the proportion of electorate per Deputy shall be maintained with a certain latitude for tolerance of one-sixth up or down, over or under the national average. That is the only point at issue. Whether a bit of Rathmines goes into Rathgar or a bit of Rathgar slides into Terenure will not alter the situation in the slightest degree. It may be an interesting mathematical exercise, but if people are anxious to get down to the hard facts of what is before us, this sort of exercise is not very helpful.
I am satisfied that this is the only workable scheme which has so far been put forward. No workable alternative scheme under the Constitution has even been suggested in the vaguest outline and if the Opposition Parties are going to say: "This is damnable, devilish and malicious" and so on, let them, in the national interest, come up with some better scheme. Even Deputy Lindsay had to agree that the old constituency system at present required revision.
(Cavan): Does the Deputy approve of the absence of the commission from the Third Amendment Bill?
It cannot be in the two.
(Cavan): Of course it can be.
It does not need to be in this Bill.
If we put it into the Third Amendment Bill and not into the Fourth Amendment, the Opposition would say it was done absolutely maliciously simply because we thought we were going to get the Third Amendment through. Regardless of what we do on this side, we are doing it maliciously, ignorantly and everything else. We shall not bother trying to talk sense into the Opposition.
(Cavan): Why not put into both Bills?
You do not, when legislating, put precisely the same provision into two Bills.
(Cavan): Of course you do. Will the Commission in the Fourth Amendment Bill operate for the business in hand for the Third Amendment Bill?
Of course it will.
(Cavan): You know that if the Fourth Amendment Bill is defeated, you have no commission.
They are both going through anyway.
You do not introduce something you think will be defeated.
You are doing it and you know it will be defeated.
(Interruptions.)
We are not as stupid as Deputies opposite think.
(Cavan): Yesterday Deputy Booth thought there was a commission.
When I see the nature of opposition, I am damn sure we are going to get it through. Fine Gael have not been able to produce anything except two or three Deputies. The remainder of the Party are probably equally divided between those who are slightly against the proposal and those who are 100 per cent in favour of it.
(Cavan): Tell us about the last Fianna Fáil Party meeting.
Deputy Cosgrave's views will prevail——
(Interruptions.)
(Cavan): I heard that the resignation of the Minister for Local Government was called for.
That is a bit drastic.
Could we hear Deputy Booth on the Schedule, as amended?
It would be drastic for the Minister.
The so-called Minister.
Deputy Fitzpatrick said that the provisions of the commission should be in the Third Amendment Bill. I am quite happy to leave it where it is in the Fourth Amendment Bill, but if the Deputy thinks it should be in the Third Amendment Bill, he is perfectly free to put down an amendment——
Will the Deputy vote for it?
Was that a helpful or a stupid interjection?
(Cavan): I made the proposal several times and the Deputy knows that.
Deputy Fitzpatrick now has Deputy Booth's permission. It is very nice and kind of him to give it.
The procedure is that if the Deputy wishes to make an amendment he puts it in writing and there has been no amendment dealing with this commission put down in the Deputy's name, so far as I am aware. If the Deputy were really in earnest about this, I doubt if he would have hesitated for a moment to put down an amendment. Either it did not occur to him or he does not believe in it.
(Cavan): I do not approve of the two Bills and I am pointing out the absence of a commission to demonstrate the dishonesty of the present Bill.
We all know that the Deputy disapproves of the Bills and consequently he has put down certain amendments. He has omitted making any amendment about the commission in this Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill.
(Cavan): Will the Deputy vote for an amendment if it is put down?
I do not see any objection to it myself. I am absolutely certain that we should have a commission and that we are going to have it. I hope the Deputies will keep in mind that mathematical accuracy is a physical impossibility, always has been and always will be, except, as I have stated, under one particular system of the block party vote, which is an intolerable suggestion and which even the Opposition would not suggest for a moment. Therefore we have got to live with a certain amount of mathematical inequality. We have always lived with it, and no member of the electorate to whom I have ever spoken has felt in the slightest degree prejudiced or unfairly treated by the way this has happened, even though at the moment the variation from the 16 per cent up or down is 45 per cent up in Dublin county; it is 30.55 per cent above the national average in my own constituency, and nobody is worried about it. Here we are tidying up the whole thing, bringing it down to a compulsory 16 per cent.
(Cavan): The Deputy would not know. He never meets his constituents.
The sheer stupidity of a person like Deputy Fitzpatrick making such a remark passes belief. I know he is just trying to be rude. There are ways and ways of being rude, and a display of ignorance is not the best way.
(Cavan): A slimy, oily way is more appropriate, according to the Deputy's approach.
I do not know whether Deputy Fitzpatrick ever meets his constituents, but I am not going to accuse him of it, because I do not know. I challenge the Opposition to produce any alternative in order to meet Deputy Costello's point that there has to be absolute mathematical accuracy and equality. Nobody on that side of the House has produced any idea for the very good reason that it is not physically possible. We have done the best we can, a workmanlike job, and I challenge anybody to do better.
I should like to stress the importance of having this amendment passed here in the House and carried by the country at large. I feel confident that the two Amendments will be carried by the people. We are dealing with the tolerance question here and I believe it will be carried because we in Fianna Fáil are united on this question.
(Cavan): Does that mean you are not united on the other?
We are united on both questions, but it is the question of tolerance that is in this amendment. We know that the Opposition are divided on this question 50-50 and therefore there will not be a united effort. The Deputies who have spoken over there are those who are opposed to this amendment. The Opposition Members who are willing to accept the amendment have not spoken here so far, and we should like to have their views on this matter. This question of tolerance is very important. It is important from the point of view of giving stability to the various constituencies throughout the country. It is also important from the point of view of ensuring that we shall have here an adequate rural representation.
Reference has been made to the principle of one man, one vote. Under the present system we have not got that. In my own constituency, there is a glaring example of this. The area of West Waterford that was taken into South Tipperary on the occasion of the last division of constituencies contains a population of roughly 11,000, in or about the population of the town of Clonmel. The area of West Waterford has a voting strength of roughly 7,000 and the town of Clonmel, with roughly the same population, has a voting strength of roughly 5,000. This is a glaring example, showing that the vote in Clonmel carries much greater weight than that in the rural area of West Waterford.
The stability of constituencies is essential, and I am very conscious of this, coming from a constituency which suffered under the last division. I know how the people of Waterford resented being taken out of their county and attached to the constituency of South Tipperary; and how they resented the fact that Waterford was reduced from a four-seat constituency to a three-seat constituency. If this tolerance proposal is not carried, they will be facing a further change. We do not know what that change will be, but yesterday evening the Minister gave us some idea of what may happen. He told us that under the Constitution the constituency of North Tipperary has not sufficient population at present to maintain three Deputies. This could mean a further division between South Tipperary and North Tipperary, and there is the possibility that on this occasion South Tipperary would be reduced to a three-seat constituency in North Tipperary and that Waterford could become a four-seat constituency with portion of South Tipperary added on. If that happens, I know the people of South Tipperary will not take kindly to it, and rightly so. I would not like to see it happen. I am sure Deputy Hogan across the way would not like it to happen; and I am sure my colleague, Deputy Treacy, would not like to see, for instance, the town of Clonmel going into County Waterford for election purposes.
This would be altogether undesirable and it is in order to avoid something like that happening that we are asking the House, and will in turn be asking the people, to accept the tolerance proposal we are putting before them in this amendment. A revision having taken place, it could happen that after the next census further revision would be necessary and we would have the ridiculous situation that the Deputies elected would not know where their future constituencies would be and that the electorate would not know who their future representative would be or in what constituency they would be for the coming general election. It is such a situation we want to avoid by having this proposal accepted.
I am personally aware of the difficulties of dealing with two county councils, and I am a firm believer in the retaining of administrative areas and county boundaries. I know how difficult it is dealing with two sets of county managers, county engineers, county medical officers and officials, down to the very bottom of the list. This situation can make the work of a Deputy much harder. The rural vote is an important one and I cannot see how the rural Deputies in particular are going to go back to their various constituencies and oppose this amendment. The people in the rural areas will not take kindly to it. They believe they are entitled to adequate representation here. The city Deputies may think they are courting favour with their constituents by opposing this but a lot of the people in the cities are first or second generation country people who have loyalties to their own particular areas and they would not like to see them denied the representation they are entitled to. I believe we will get both amendments because we are united on this and because the Opposition are divided.
Why not get it to the people then instead of talking it out?
It is you who are talking it out.
(Cavan): No, we only put up one speaker today.
We know what the people's answer will be. We have every confidence in them on this occasion. We want to ensure this stability in the constituencies and to ensure that there will be adequate representation here.
In view of what has been stated by some of the Opposition speakers, I want to express my appreciation of the effort the Minister has made in placing before the Dáil the full facts regarding this Third Amendment. On many occasions we have heard Opposition speakers stating that the Dáil is the place in which important matters should be discussed and that the Government should put their views before the people through the Dáil. We had the Minister yesterday going to great lengths to explain the very intricate problems in order to show up all the implications of this Bill. What did we get in return? Nothing but criticism from the Opposition benches for having done this. The pity is that public interest in the affairs of this House is not great and it is to be regretted that his speech will not be read by many people throughout the country. If every citizen who will have a vote in the referendum took the time to sit down and read through his speech, there would be no doubt about the outcome of the referendum.
Despite the lack of interest among the public in this, we believe, and I say this in all sincerity, that there will not be any great difficulty in getting this referendum through. We are the people who are putting it forward and it is up to us to explain it to the people. We have had nothing but negative criticism from the Opposition Parties. If they want to present a negative case to this amendment, by all means let them do so. We have a responsibility to the people and we are putting forward a proposal which we believe to be in the best interests of the people. We want the people to decide on this issue, and that is why the Third Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment, have been brought forward. I was very glad to hear Deputy Norton, on television last night, stating exactly the same thing. He is giving an independent view. As he is not now tied by the Labour Party, he can do so.
As the Deputy is by the Fianna Fáil Party.
He stated that it was his own personal view that the straight vote was the best system and the only system that could be adopted here. We believe that a tremendous amount of study and hard work will have to be done by us. The Opposition do not want the people to know what this is about. They want to finish the debate so that the people will not know what it is about and will be left in the dark. As they know from our performance in the past, we will not allow that to happen. We are interested in the future not only of the Party but of the country and of the people, whether they vote for us or not. It is only too plain that the only interest Fine Gael and the Labour Party Members have is in their own individual seats and positions and the future of their Parties. There has been an effort made on the part of some Fine Gael Members to oppose these two proposals purely for selfish reasons. That is quite clear and it is well known throughout the country. They could not deny now, if I put it to them, that the decision they made was defeated by one vote——
That is not right.
It is. I was informed by one of your members——
(Cavan): Tell us about the last Fianna Fáil meeting when there was a call for the resignation of a Minister?
That is absurd.
(Interruptions.)
The Deputy is not entitled to perpetrate falsehoods.
It is my intention to place on the record of the House——
Falsehoods.
——that I have been informed by a well-known member of the Fine Gael Party that there was only one vote between them——
Name him.
(Cavan): You little rat, name him or shut up.
Name him.
I will ask him——
Coward.
I will ask his permission to name him.
Do not break a confidence.
(Cavan): The Deputy does not know the meaning of the word integrity.
(Interruptions.)
(Cavan): The Deputy does not know the meaning of the word integrity.
I have heard Fine Gael spokesmen coming in here and referring in speeches to what they have been told in the corridors by members of the Fianna Fáil Party. I think that is all right but they never mentioned their names. It might be——
They invented it.
It might be breaking confidence.
Was it a casting vote?
No, it was no such thing.
I asked the Deputy if I could use his name and he said: "Do not drag me into it."
Just a moment ago the Deputy said that he would ask the Deputy's permission to name him.
I will ask him again.
This is a contemptible performance.
The Deputy will not intimidate me.
There is no question of intimidation. We want the truth.
(Cavan): The Deputy fell into the bad books of the Minister for Local Government over the Party leadership and now he is trying to get back into his good books by licking up to him.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Molloy. Deputy Lindsay had better cease interrupting.
I will make my own speech.
Make it without falsehoods.
I am sorely tempted to mention the Deputy's name.
(Cavan): I defy you to.
I will not because he did not give me permission.
(Cavan): The Deputy knows that that is not true.
I have a personal letter here and I will read part of it. This is written by a parish priest——
Is the Deputy proposing to give the source of the quotation?
(Interruptions.)
——the backbenchers did not want to risk the straight vote——
(Cavan): On a point of order, Deputy Molloy has quoted from a written document and I submit that under Standing Orders it is his duty to give the reference.
That is not an official document; it is a private document. He is entitled to quote from it.
(Cavan): He is quoting from a document.
He said it was a parish priest in County Galway.
(Cavan): Perhaps he was writing to the Minister.
We know the Fine Gael Party are confused. Some of their backbenchers did not want the straight vote because they were afraid they would lose their seats.
I should like to remind the Deputy——
I am on the Third Amendment. They know in their hearts and souls they should be voting for the Third Amendment. We are putting proposals before the people which we know it will be difficult to get across to the people. We know how difficult it is to explain things to the people. We know there are still people who come into the polling station and want to give their votes to Mr. de Valera. That is why we are trying to raise the general standard of education throughout the country and that is why we have a very great responsibility in putting the case to the people through the Dáil. There are other ways in which we can do it and we will do it. We know Deputy Lindsay has given up hope of retaining his seat down in the West. He is fiddling around in Dublin and he may go forward for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Molloy on the Schedule, as amended.
It comes very badly from absentee TDs to be running down the provision of tolerance for the people in the west of Ireland.
To whom is the Deputy referring? Deputy Aiken? The Deputy had an absentee leader for 40 years in Clare.
Do I have to be interrupted by this absentee Deputy from North Mayo?
The Deputy is an offensive boy himself.
I would like to compliment the Minister on the time he took yesterday to put the full facts before us. If it is true that the west of Ireland is to lose three TDs, if this goes through, that might not concern very many people, but, if there are three TDs fewer in one place, there will be three added in another place. I know the progression. One can end up with a completely Dublin or Leinster-orientated East of Ireland Parliament and the rest of Ireland will be forgotten. Are we to arrive at a position when Ireland ends at Chapelizod? So long as I am alive, that day will never come. I will fight to the end to ensure that the people in the West, in the South and in Donegal are given proper representation here in our Irish Parliament.
I just want to say a few short words since the last speaker, supported by the Minister, has brought into the discussion the question of the Fine Gael attitude. I want to make it quite clear that the statement issued by the Fine Gael Party, after they considered this matter and took their decision on it, conveyed that decision accurately and there were considerably fewer members of the Fine Gael Party who had reservations with regard to that attitude than there were amongst the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party who voted for Deputy Colley as Taoiseach as against Deputy Lynch. I should like to make that quite clear for the digestion, in particular, of the Minister for Local Government and Deputy Molloy. So far as the Fine Gael Party are concerned with the particular measure before the House at the moment and with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which we will be considering later, there is no doubt in the mind of anyone in this Party, and there need be no doubts in the mind of anyone in the country, that we are going to fight this tooth and nail and we are going to defeat it.
As I have said already today, I thought I had dealt fairly comprehensively with this proposal, but a number of Opposition Deputies have asked me to deal with other aspects of it, in particular Deputy Fitzpatrick, who has demanded that I go in some more detail into the position in the Dublin area. Deputy Fitzpatrick may not remember that I dealt with the situation in Dublin city and county as a whole and that I said it must be obvious, even to Deputy Fitzpatrick, who has taken no interest in the matter, that the ways in which the situation arising in that area could be dealt with were so numerous that there did not seem to be much point in my trying to go through all the different arrangements that might happen in that area.
I did, however, place on the records of the House the fundamental facts with regard to the Dublin area. I gave the House the total population in accordance with the 1966 census. I gave the total number of voters in the area in accordance with the 1967-68 register of electors. I showed Deputy Fitzpatrick and any other Deputy who wanted to know, and who was prepared to take the trouble of reading yesterday's debate, that, on the basis of total population, the minimum number of seats for Dublin would be 38, an increase of four, whereas, on the basis of voters, the increase required would be only two. I compared that with the situation in the west of Ireland in an area stretching from Donegal to Clare, including the province of Connacht, where, on the basis of population — which is the basis the Fine Gael and Labour Parties are determined to retain — there must be a reduction in the total representation of the area from 33 to 30, a loss of three seats, although, on the basis of voters per Deputy, the reduction should be only from 33 to 32.
The whole operation, therefore, of the Fine Gael and Labour Parties in opposing this amendment to the Constitution, which we are putting forward — largely, as I showed in response to the unanimous demands of the Opposition Parties in 1961—is intended to deprive the people in the western part of the country of two seats to which they are fully entitled, even on the most rigid interpretation of this famous principle of one man one vote. It is intended to do that for the purpose of giving to the urban area of Dublin an extra representation of two Deputies to which that area is not entitled in accordance with this principle. I surmised that part of the reason for this campaign was that Fine Gael Deputies from rural areas had lately shown a tendency of wanting to transfer themselves from their rural constituencies to the city of Dublin. Deputy M.J. O'Higgins is, we are led to believe, one of the four who have been mentioned in this regard. Deputy Lindsay, is, admittedly, another. There are also Deputy T.F. O'Higgins and, apparently, Deputy P. O'Donnell.
Having shown that, I really thought that I had dealt sufficiently with the Dublin area. There did not seem to be any point in going into the individual constituencies as they exist in Dublin at present because it must be obvious that those constituencies will have no further relevance if there is to be a revision of constituencies carried out now on the basis of the last census and on the basis of the Constitution as it is at present, that is on the assumption that this amendment will not be made because, obviously, the only thing that could be done in regard to the Dublin area would be to start afresh, to start right from scratch and deal with it in the new. There would be no question of a Dublin county constituency, Dún Laoghaire or Rathdown, Dublin North-East, Dublin North-Central, Dublin South-East, Dublin South-Central and Dublin South-West. These constituencies just will not exist any more. We will just have to start afresh and draw up a completely new system of constituencies for the Dublin area. As I say, there are numerous ways in which that could be done.
It appears to me that the first thing we would have to decide in regard to the Dublin area would be how that area will be affected by all the problems that will arise in the counties bordering on it. I gave some indication yesterday of what these problems are and indicated that the solution of those problems might very well involve some adjustments with the county of Dublin. That might be found to be — I shall not say the most satisfactory way of dealing with the problem — but the least unsatisfactory way, because, as everybody here knows, both Opposition Deputies and Deputies on this side of the House — only the Opposition Deputies will not admit it — the constituencies cannot be revised in a satisfactory way under the present system. Even Deputy Costello admitted that there was a "constitutional infirmity", as he described it here today. I am not going back on history. Deputy Hogan seems to be surprised that Deputy Costello said that but he did say it today, just a short time ago. It was admitted by everybody, he said, that this "constitutional infirmity" was there and that it was not a reasonable thing that the Constitution should require these injustices to be perpetrated on a comparatively large section of the community throughout the country as a whole.
I admit that this was rather surprising, particularly when we are told by other members of the Fine Gael Party that they are quite united on this matter and in view of the fact that Deputy Fitzpatrick has been for days here, both on the Second Stage and on the Committee Stage of this Bill, making it apparent that in so far as he was concerned — and he is supposed to be the spokesman of the Fine Gael Party — the present constitutional requirement is ideal, that it is democratic and that there is no need to amend it.
However, as I said, obviously, in dealing with the situation in the Dublin area, the first thing that would have to be decided would be, for instance, whether the situation that arises in County Meath could be best dealt with by an adjustment with the county of Dublin or in some other way and, of course, the situation that will arise in County Meath is something that cannot be postulated definitely at present because what happens in Meath is dependent on what happens in Louth and what happens in Louth is dependent on what happens in Monaghan and what happens in Monaghan is dependent on what happens in Cavan.
As I showed yesterday, nothing at all need happen in County Cavan, unless Deputy Fitzpatrick has his way and this amendment is not effected, because there is no reason whatever for any change in County Cavan as the number of voters in the county fully entitles it to its present three seats. However, the unnecessary situation that Deputy Fitzpatrick wants to create in his own constituency of Cavan, the disruption that he wants to create there, the butchering of the county boundaries that he wants to cause in Cavan, will affect all these other counties and will be a factor that must be taken into consideration in deciding on the revision of the scheme of constituencies in the Dublin area.
County Meath, as I said, may be affected either by having to receive a considerable portion of the population of County Louth or by giving a considerable portion of its population to County Louth. Again, it may be affected by receiving back from the Kildare constituency portion of the population of County Meath that was transferred to that constituency in 1961. Another way in which County Meath might be affected would be in adjusting the situation of Longford-Westmeath.
Nobody can say at this stage which of these situations will arise in the County Meath because it all depends on the way in which other constituencies are dealt with. One thing is certain, that there will be a problem to be dealt with there and one of the possible solutions of it would involve an adjustment of one kind or another with County Dublin, either by transferring part of County Dublin to a Meath constituency or by transferring part of Meath to a Dublin County constituency.
Dublin is also bordered by the County Kildare and the same thing may happen with regard to Kildare because, although the present constituency of Kildare is, as I showed yesterday, within the constitutional requirements, just as Meath is at present, and there is no requirement in accordance with the present Constitution to revise either a Kildare or a Meath constituency, still, because of what Deputy Fitzpatrick wants to insist on happening in Cavan, the constituency of Kildare may well be affected also by this unnecessary chopping and changing.
(Cavan): I thought the Minister rose to deal with Dublin.
That is what I am dealing with.
(Cavan): The Minister is making a very good job of avoiding it.
I have to work into it, just as I had to work to Kildare from Cavan.
(Cavan): An excellent job of avoiding. The Minister may have his own reasons.
The constituency of Kildare may well be affected by this and, in order to deal with the problem that is unnecessarily caused in Kildare, some adjustment between County Kildare and the county of Dublin may be unavoidable. So the manner in which the problem in Meath and Kildare will be dealt with will obviously affect the rearranging of the constituencies in the Dublin area.
The other county which borders Dublin is County Wicklow. As far as I can see, that is one of the counties that is likely — but not certain — to escape change on this occasion but, of course, not on future occasions.
Therefore, in dealing with the Dublin situation, you would, first of all, have to base our approach on some assumptions in regard to County Meath and County Kildare. Accordingly, no really definite indication can be given at this stage as to what would happen in the Dublin area, but the position there is that the population of the whole county of Dublin, including the county borough, is 795,047 people. That of course is the figure on which in present circumstances representation must be based. That figure includes new-born children as well as voters. It includes all children in the different maternity hospitals, on census night, whether or not they ever see Dublin again for the rest of their lives. It includes pupils in colleges and visitors in hotels. It includes aliens who have not got a vote here at all. All these people must be taken into account in determining constituencies at present.
That is what the Deputies opposite are insisting on. That is what we will let their constituents know they are insisting on before this referendum is held. That is the figure. In accordance with that figure, the Dublin area must get at least 38 seats. The number of voters there on the 1967-68 register is 446,781. On the assumption that the same percentage divergence from the national average of voters would be permissible as in the case of population, this would require a minimum of 36 seats, not 38. Deputy Fitzpatrick, who represents the constituency of Cavan, Deputy Collins, who represents West Cork, Deputy Hogan, who represents South Tipperary — all these people for some reason or other want to ensure that this area will be given two seats more than even the most rigid interpretation of this principle they have so frequently quoted requires.
(Cavan): We want to avoid gerrymandering.
For some reason or other they want to deprive the rural part of this country of at least two seats to which that part of the country is fully entitled, no matter how rigidly you interpret this idea of one vote equalling another vote in different parts of the country.
I think I know the people of Dublin as well as anybody else. I was born and reared in the city of Dublin. I am elected for a Dublin constituency. I have no hesitation in going to any part of Dublin city or county and saying to the people there that there is no reason why a Dublin vote should be more valuable than a rural vote. I know the Dublin people and I think they are prepared to accept that. The Opposition Parties have got accustomed to the idea of treating the electorate, whether a rural electorate or an urban electorate, as being people incapable of appreciating such things. We have not. We believe that they can appreciate this and that is why we continue to retain the support of the people. I do not believe the people of Dublin want to deprive the people of rural Ireland of a right to which they are fully entitled. I can well understand that Deputies like Deputy Lindsay who are in the process of leaving a rural constituency——
Will you be certain now?
——and coming to Dublin seeing an advantage in taking from the province of Connacht two seats to which it is fully entitled and bringing those two seats to Dublin.
The Minister's only worry is that Fianna Fáil will lose them.
If there are two extra seats in Dublin and two less in the west of Ireland, from which Deputy Lindsay is emigrating——
Migrating.
——then Deputy Lindsay's prospects of securing election in the new field in which he has chosen to serve are greatly increased. I want to point out that the figures show that this is an undemocratic thing that the Fine Gael Party and Labour Party are trying to do. I am quite confident both the people of Dublin and of rural Ireland will accept that.
If this proposal we are making that the maximum permissible divergence from the national average of one-sixth over or below is passed and if it were utilised to the maximum possible extent in the urban areas, the absolute minimum representation that the Dublin area could receive would be 35, which would be an increase of one. As I said, it is quite obvious it will not be possible to use this maximum divergence of one-sixth throughout the country as a whole, even if anybody wanted to. It would not be possible to do it because for one thing you have not got the population with that great accuracy. You have it only for certain areas.
It is not one-sixth. It is one-sixth above or below. That is one-third.
That is what I said. Even if anybody wanted to use the minimum population per Deputy in every part of rural Ireland and the maximum population per Deputy in every more urbanised area, it would not be physically possible to do it. Therefore, the likelihood is, at the very minimum, if this proposal we have is passed by the people, the Dublin area will have 36 seats, which is exactly the number required, based on the national average of voters per Deputy. Therefore this proposal will do no injustice to the Dublin area, for which the Deputies opposite in the Labour Party and Fine Gael Party express such concern. They say they are concerned that justice shall be done in the Dublin area. That is what they pretend. In fact, what they are trying to do is to ensure that there will be a differential in the voting power as between urban and rural areas. I have already demonstrated that. I know the Deputies opposite will try to conceal that but we intend to see they will not succeed.
I showed here that the percentage of voters in the population of Dublin North-West is 50.96 per cent of the population comprising the electorate there. If constituencies are to be as the Opposition want, if they are to be decided on the basis of strict equality of population per Deputy, this will mean that the number of voters per Deputy in the Dublin North-West area will be 10,206. I pointed out that in Donegal South-West the percentage of the population comprised by the electorate is 67.74. What the Opposition are trying to do is to arrange that there will be an electorate per Deputy in Donegal South-West of 13,567 as against 10,206 in the Dublin North-West area.
Deputies may try to do what they like here. I can assure them we will let the people know exactly what they are trying to do. In the county of Donegal as a whole, for instance, the percentage of the population which the electorate comprises is 65.1. What the Opposition are insisting on is that it will take 13,038 voters to elect a Deputy in that county as against 10,206 in the constituency at present described as Dublin North-West. The amazing thing is that Deputies opposite are trying to maintain this position, and they have the effrontery to say that they are doing this in the interests of ensuring that votes will be equal in all parts of the country.
The fact that Fine Gael Deputies are deciding to contest city constituencies instead of the constituencies that have elected them is one indication that officially, as a Party, they have decided to abandon the rural areas. It did not need Deputy Cosgrave's speech in which he indicated that it is now the policy of the Fine Gael Party to reduce the number of farmers in the country to one in every 60——
(Cavan): It was the Minister's policy that made this Bill necessary.
It is obvious that even if Fine Gael do succeed in eliminating all these family farms they intend to eliminate, those who will survive and eventually wind up owning farms with a minimum of 400 cows per farm will not be even a small percentage of the existing farmers, because few farmers will be able to acquire the capital necessary to equip and stock farms of that size. It is creating a new class of person altogether. However, I do not think that arises on the Bill.
The Minister is having difficulty in finding words to distort adequately.
It is an indication of the whole attitude of the Fine Gael Party that in order to implement this policy, they have decided to try to retain the position which makes an urban vote of greater value in electing a Deputy than a rural vote.
I assume that when Deputy Fitzpatrick asks me to deal with the Dublin area he wants me to go through the Dublin constituencies as they exist at present and show what the position is. As I have said, the figures have all been put on the records of the House already. I know that the Fine Gael Party have been complaining about their lack of facilities for research. It may be that it was with that in mind that Deputy Collins was so kind as to arrange to have the figures put on the records of the House. They are there and available — they were given in reply to a question — to Deputies who want to know what the position is.
(Cavan): The Minister is determined not to deal with Dublin.
No, the Minister will deal with that. I am pointing out that it is completely unnecessary and completely irrevelant because the existing constituencies in the Dublin area — you have a coalition now and surely you have not started fighting?
I am pointing out that the Minister will go on until 6.30 tonight and we will not be discussing this Bill tomorrow. The Minister is scared to death. He is scared after Limerick.
I would not like to see their lovely newly formed coalition breaking up.
The Minister is looking for an excuse. Tell the truth.
The constituencies in Dublin have no further relevance because it is obvious that the change of population in that whole area will require a completely new approach after we have decided how the area is to be affected by the situation arising in Meath and Kildare. However, since Deputy Fitzpatrick is incapable of reading the figures for himself and wants me to read them out specially for him, I will start off with the constituency of Dublin County.
In the constituency of Dublin County, the population, in accordance with the 1966 census, is 145,903, and the number of voters on the register is 74,600. In accordance with the High Court decision, such a constituency, if it were to continue, would have to have a minimum of seven seats allocated to it. If the constituency could be considered in isolation, which it cannot of course, the matter could be dealt with by increasing the representation of that constituency by two, by making it to a seven-seat constituency. That might be the simplest way to deal with it if it could be considered in isolation, which it cannot be because it is affected by all the other Dublin constituencies and by the situation in Meath and Kildare.
No one can say at this stage exactly what will happen in the constituency of Dublin County but I have given the figures to Deputy Fitzpatrick which he is incapable of reading from the Official Report himself. I have indicated to him that the proper representation of that constituency would be seven Deputies in accordance with the present requirements of the Constitution. If it could be considered by itself, it could be dealt with by taking those two seats which Deputy Lindsay unjustifiably wants to take from the Province of Connacht and giving them to the constituency of Dublin County as it exists at present, and no doubt we would have Deputy Lindsay contesting the constituency of Dublin County, and we would then have the benefit of two Mayomen contesting it.
The Minister could not stand that.
Somehow or other, I think we would have only one Mayo Deputy representing Dublin County as the result of such an election. That is the possibility, however.
(Cavan): What the Minister is afraid of is not two seats from Connacht but two Fianna Fáil seats. That is the trouble.
I know that in his search for a seat in the Dublin area up to now, Deputy Lindsay has not considered the constituency of Dublin County. I have indicated the position there and the possibility of an increase of two seats in that area, and it may be that he will now extend the scope of his investigation to the constituency of Dublin County. No doubt Deputy Clinton and Senator Rooney will welcome him as a colleague on the Fine Gael panel.
As warmly as the Minister welcomed Deputy Burke.
(Cavan): The people of Connacht do not want any more Fianna Fáil TDs.
The position in the constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is that the population in accordance with the 1966 census is 104,582, and the number of voters on the 1967-68 register is 61,322. Obviously that constituency in accordance with the present requirements of the Constitution, if it could be considered alone, if it would not be affected by other adjustments in other constituencies, would be entitled to five Deputies.
In accordance with the 1966 census, the constituency of Dublin North-East has a population of 139,163 and the number of voters is 78,192. This is, as Deputies may know — particularly those Deputies who have investigated the possibility of transferring themselves to the Dublin area — a five-seat constituency at present. On the basis of the present population, like the constituency of Dublin County, it would be entitled to seven seats. This is another area to which Deputy Lindsay, the two Deputies O'Higgins and Deputy O'Donnell might direct their attention if this is not passed.
What about George and Charlie?
I now come to another constituency which will not have the same attraction for Deputy Lindsay, the constituency of Dublin North-Central where the population in accordance with the 1966 census is 66,842 and the number of voters is 38,557. It is a four-seat constituency but in accordance with the High Court decision, the minimum population required for a four-seat constituency is 76,112. This is one of the constituencies that have more representation than is justified by the present requirements of the Constitution. It will have to be adjusted in some way. It cannot be adjusted by a mere reduction in the number of seats because there would be too many there then, for three seats in accordance with the High Court interpretation of the Constitution. Therefore, it must be adjusted with some neighbouring constituency. Obviously, this means, as I said already, that there is no point really in considering the constituencies in Dublin as they exist at present — the constituencies of Dublin County, Dublin North-East and so on — because they will be affected by a situation such as this.
The constituency of Dublin North-West as it exists at present has a population of 81,841 and has 41,715 voters. That constituency is a three-seat constituency at present. In accordance with the present constitutional provisions, it requires additional representation. It would be entitled to four seats as against the three there at present. If rumour is correct, I think that is one of the constituencies in which the Fine Gael migrants or potential migrants are showing an interest.
There is a Fianna Fáil migrant there, too, do not forget — Dublin North-West.
Very much so.
Deputy Gogan?
There is somebody on his heels — and a Mayoman.
This constituency of Dublin North-West is entitled to four seats in accordance with the present Constitution. This will be based on a voting strength per Deputy in the area of 10,206 as against 13,567 in Donegal South-West — and this is the democratic principle that Deputy Dunne, Deputy Fitzpatrick of Cavan and the rest of them are trying to establish, namely, that it should take over 13,500 votes to elect a Deputy in a scattered and mountainous rural area and a bare 10,000 votes in a built-up area.
Constitutionally, the voting strength is not relevant.
I appreciate that the Fine Gael Party apparently agree with Deputy Ryan's contention that the trials and tribulations of a Deputy in covering his constituency from Rathmines to Kimmage are much more difficult and impose much more hardship on that Deputy than would be imposed on Deputy Harte in covering Donegal from the top of Inishowen down to Bundoran, or down through part of County Leitrim, which may be the position if this amendment is not effected. It may be for that reason that the Deputies opposite want to have a smaller electorate per Deputy in the Dublin area than in those much more easily worked areas of Donegal and Kerry, the idea apparently being that to travel in and out of the Kerry peninsulas and around the McGillicuddy Reeks and the Sliabh Mis Mountains is a much easier operation than this fearsome journey Deputy Ryan described to us that he has to perform in visiting his constituents and travelling from Rathmines to Kimmage.
The constituency of Dublin SouthEast, as it exists at present, has a population of 65.608 and the number of voters there is 41,013. That is a three-seat area. Marginally, it would be in excess of the permitted number of population per Deputy at present. Therefore, this would be one of the constituencies that require adjustment in accordance with the present constitutional requirements. The population, however, is not such as to call for another Deputy. Accordingly, it could be dealt with either by being added to a part of some other constituency or by part of that other constituency being incorporated in it.
The population in Dublin South-Central is 90,687 and the number of voters there is 53,295. That is a five-seat area. There would be surprise if this is one of the areas Deputy Lindsay has been investigating, because the minimum population required at present for five seats is 95,140. Therefore, this constituency would obviously have to be altered, either by losing a seat and having portion of the area transferred to some other Dublin constituency or by having portion of some other constituency added to it and retaining its present representation.
As I pointed out, the only realistic way to deal with the whole problem in the Dublin area would be to start afresh and to ignore the existence of any constituency whatever in the area and to start on the basis of the total population of 795,047 and draw up a completely new scheme of constituencies.
Dublin South-West has a population of 100,221 and the number of voters there is 58,097. This is a five-seat area. It is one of the few constituencies that are within the present provisions of the Constitution. Fourteen out of the 38 constituencies comply with the present constitutional requirements and this is one of them. It is not a constituency that can avoid dismemberment because of that because the constitutional requirements in the rest of the Dublin area will inevitably also affect Dublin South-West. The possible result may conceivably be that the journeys Deputy Ryan will have to perform in order to get from one part of his constituency to the other may be even more hazardous and make more demands on his stamina than his present stupendous task of travelling occasionally from Rathmines to Kimmage.
That gives Deputy Fitzpatrick the information he requires to visualise the position in the Dublin area, and the problems there will be in deciding on the new scheme of constituencies if this amendment is not passed. His idea of what may happen is as good as mine but, as I pointed out, he would, first of all, want to decide on how the situation in Meath and Kildare would be dealt with and work on from there. The fundamental thing about it, at any rate, is that this area as a whole has at present 34 seats. The western area of Donegal to Clare, including the Province of Connacht, has 33 seats. If the amendment we propose is not made, this area must have an increase of four seats and the western area must have a decrease of three seats.
However, if a revision were based on the number of voters, the increase in seats in this Dublin area would be two — not four — and the decrease of seats in the western area would be one — not three. The spurious claim of the Opposition Parties that their opposition to this proposal is on the basis of their desire to ensure that in every part of the country a vote will be of equal effect in electing a Deputy is shown to be a spurious claim by this fact, that what they insist on is that there will be two more seats than are required by that principle in the Dublin area and two fewer seats than are required by that principle in the rural area. It exposes this as an attempt by the Fine Gael and Labour Parties to deprive rural areas of the country, and the rural parts of Dublin also, of their due representation. This is a deliberate attempt by the Fine Gael and Labour Parties to perpetuate the injustice that resulted from the Fine Gael manoeuvre in the courts in 1961, to perpetuate that situation and to ensure for evermore that an urban vote will be of greater effect in electing a Deputy than a rural vote. It is part of a vendetta——
On a point of order, is it right that the Minister should refer to the results of a judgment of the court as perpetuating an injustice?
The Minister has made no reflection on the judge. This matter has already been raised and the Chair has ruled that the Minister made no reflection on the judge and that he is in order in referring to that judgment.
He has now used the phrase "the injustice resulting from a Fine Gael manoeuvre in our courts".
That is right. There is no reflection on the judge. The reflection is on Fine Gael.
The reflection is obviously on the judge who became the subject of a Fine Gael manoeuvre and failed to administer the law as he swore to administer it.
Nobody suggested that.
Of course the Minister is suggesting it.
I did not suggest for a moment that the judge gave a wrong decision.
If injustice resulted, it was a wrong decision.
I am suggesting that prior to that Fine Gael manoeuvre in the court, this Article in the Constitution had been interpreted by the people who drafted the Constitution, by the Oireachtas, and prior to that interpretation which was extracted from the courts by this Fine Gael manoeuvre, it had been assumed that the phrase "so far as it is practicable" entitled Dáil Éireann to take such practical considerations as we have included in this Bill into account in deciding on the delineation of constituencies.
(Cavan): And the Supreme Court so held in 1961.
The judgment of the High Court was to the effect that the Article of the Constitution did not permit this to be done and as a result of that, as I have shown by quotations from many Opposition speakers in 1961, it was the view at that time of all sides of this House that this requirement of the Constitution which had now been interpreted by the authority which is laid down as being the competent authority to interpret, constituted an injustice on the people of the country. Deputy Costello here today admitted that. There was what he described as a "constitutional infirmity". He implied that there was some other way in which that could be rectified but he studiously refrained from indicating any way in which this injustice which the Constitution requires to be perpetrated on the people, can be rectified other than by giving the Oireachtas reasonable scope to avoid this injustice; in other words, by giving them reasonable scope in regard to the proportion of population per Deputy in different areas——
We now have the extraordinary situation that the much-vaunted Constitution of the Fianna Fáil Party is perpetrating an injustice.
That is correct, but not intentionally. That became obvious when it was interpreted by the High Court at the instigation of Fine Gael in 1961 and, as I pointed out yesterday——
(Cavan): On a point of order, Deputy Costello is on record here today, and it was for the purpose of pointing out this clearly and without ambiguity that he rose, as saying that Senator John O'Donovan brought the case in 1959 or 1960 on his own and that the Fine Gael Party had no hand, act or part in it, either financially or otherwise.
That is not a point of order.
(Cavan): I would not expect the Minister to have the decency to accept that.
No; I would not expect anybody in the country to accept it either. Anybody who thinks that a Senator of the Fine Gael Party with his solicitor, a Deputy of the Fine Gael Party, were acting as private individuals in this case is a simpler person than I would expect.
(Cavan): Honester.
I am afraid the Minister is inclined to judge people by his own standards.
I think it is natural to assume that since this manoeuvre was carried out by a Senator and a Deputy of the Fine Gael Party this was, in fact, as everybody said, a Fine Gael effort to establish this interpretation of the Constitution as the correct one. When the Constitution has been interpreted by the courts, that must be accepted as the correct legal interpretation of the words in the Constitution, although the Oireachtas had agreed down through the years——
(Cavan): Deal with the case in the Supreme Court in 1961.
——that this phrase should be interpreted, as it had been interpreted up to then. Apparently, the Opposition are not satisfied with the system of election that will give some arbitrarily selected people as many as five, ten, 15, or 20 votes but in addition, they want to ensure for some reason that an urban vote will be more effective than a rural vote.
How can you make that out? It is ridiculous.
That is exactly what the Deputy is trying to do. He is trying to insist that it will take 10,000 votes to elect a Deputy in Dublin North-West and 13,500 votes to elect a Deputy in South-West Donegal.
(South Tipperary): Why not base your amendment on votes rather than population?
Deputy Norton raised that earlier and I shall be coming to it. This is a deliberate attempt to increase the differential in voting at present being made available to one section of the community. It is a purely sectional approach. It is a cold-blooded effort by the Fine Gael and Labour Parties to divide the country on the basis of the urban population versus the rural population. It is completely unnecessary, and we are quite prepared to justify this proposal of ours in the urban areas of Dublin, Cork, or anywhere else as well as in the rural areas because we know that the people of Dublin do not want to get specially-favoured treatment as compared with people in rural areas——
They want to be second-class citizens, is that it?
We know that the most they want is that a vote in every part of the country will be of reasonably equal value and that is exactly what this proposal will ensure, no more and no less. Nobody knows it better than Deputy Dunne and Deputy Fitzpatrick but, for base ulterior motives of their own, they want to deprive rural Ireland of the representation to which it is entitled on the basis of equality in the effectiveness of a vote in electing a Deputy. This is a deliberate attempt to perpetuate that situation.
Tugadh tuairisc ar a ndearnadh; an Coiste do shuí arís.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.