Not at all. He does not do that. I merely want to deal with a couple of points made, first of all, by Deputy Stephen Barrett who based his argument against the proposal in the Bill on what is really a fairytale and a fantasy composed by two eminent television personalities who did not understand the matter. When trying to forecast the future, on the basis of the results of the last local elections, they predicted that, if proportional representation were abolished, Fianna Fáil would get 100 seats. That would assume that electoral opinion was distributed uniformly throughout every district in this country. So, where Fianna Fáil were strong in one particular district, they would be strong everywhere—which, of course, is not the case.
An average does not mean a general uniformity but these eminent television personalities assumed it does. So, on the basis of how the votes were being cast at the last municipal election, they came out with this fairytale and fantasy that, if proportional representation were abolished, Fianna Fáil would win 100 seats. But an average is not, as I said, a uniformity. It is a measure of uniformity but it is not in itself a uniformity. On the contrary, it is the result of widespread differences, of differences which may be widely apart in an area, widely separated in locality, widespread, however, in certain economic sectors. Therefore, it is quite wrong to do as these gentlemen did, to proceed to apply to the whole country a certain average of results when the system of election was radically to be changed. One simple example will indicate the fallacy in the matter.
If proportional representation is abolished, there is not any doubt about it—I have no doubt about it whatsoever—that the position of the Labour Party in our large centres of population will substantially improve: they are likely to get several more seats in Dublin than they have at the moment. The same will, no doubt, apply in Cork and, to some extent, in Limerick and Waterford. If we assume that uniformity in electoral opinion prevails throughout the country we get the absurd situation on which Deputy Stephen Barrett has based his case against the amendment now before the House. Therefore, as I say, it is entirely fallacious. If you look at it in a concrete way and realise there are very many more Labour voters and supporters in the city of Dublin, as the last election showed, than there are in Clare where my colleague, Deputy Barrett, was recently returned triumphantly, then you will see why the Labour Party are not likely to get as many seats in districts like Clare if PR is abolished but they are certainly going to get more seats in the urban districts.
Similarly with Fine Gael, who have their own strongholds throughout the country too. These strongholds are submerged under the existing system of the multi-member constituency. They do not appear and they are not visible in the ballot boxes except when you are witnessing a count. They are not visible in the figures of the count because they are merged in the mass of votes. If we had single-seat constituencies, there are certainly in the city of Dublin certain localities which would definitely return a Fine Gael member almost in any circumstances, just as there are other districts in Dublin which would return Fianna Fáil members. Therefore if we abolished PR, there would not be such a change in the composition of this Dáil at all. There certainly would be a greater majority in favour of the Government than there is now, but it would be only marginally greater. It would prevent a system whereby you might be ruled by a minority with the tolerance of a certain number of Independent Deputies, or by the tolerance of the principal Opposition Parties in this House, as happened before. That is very bad from the point of view of the public's interests but it is the situation which has obtained here on several occasions.
For instance in 1932, the Labour Party could have put us out but they did not want to face an election. There was a hugger-mugger and they were discussing it in their councils. They discussed whether those who supported them would tolerate their giving support to a Cumann na nGaedhael Government. They put us in but only because they had no alternative and it was not from any great sympathy because we saw what that sympathy amounted to, when in 1948 a really critical situation arose. In 1937, the Fianna Fáil Party had not got an overall majority but we became a tolerated Government without any real Opposition because they were afraid to put us out and therefore they allowed us to go on. As a Government, however, we had neither the strength nor the authority which would allow us to put through the programme we had in mind. Just as in 1932, it required the election of 1933 to give us the strength to fight the Economic War, just so in 1937, it required the 1938 election to pull us through the World War. In 1943, we had an election and we came back again as a tolerated Government without any real Opposition, until there was a snap division here, and despite the anxiety of some people not to win that division, they did win it and they gave us the general election of 1944. We then came back with the authority to put a policy through. We had the policy of strong and, shall I say, sophisticated neutrality which brought us through the war without losing us the goodwill of a great number of people whose antagonism might have been very dangerous to the freedom and prosperity of the country.
That is the situation that exists at present under PR, that you are likely to get that sort of Government and that sort of situation in which you will have no real Opposition, as we have experienced on several occasions. On the other hand, if you abolish PR, if you have the single-seat constituency with the straight vote, then a different situation will be created and you will have a Government with authority behind it and an Opposition with the ambition to try to get it out and one that may be strong enough to get it out because it will tend to be a united Opposition. You have not got that situation now and you cannot get that situation under PR. At present you have Fine Gael anxious for office and you have the Labour Party no less anxious for office, as naturally is their right. They want office in order to put through their policy just as Fine Gael want office, but I cannot say that it is in order to put through their policy because no person knows what that policy is.
The policy of Fine Gael is now undergoing a period of gestation and it all depends on whether they can have this liaison with the Labour Party which will enable it to produce some fruit from that marvellous womb. That is the situation we have now due entirely to PR. You have two divergent Parties with no common association or link between them and they are now bargaining, or at least one of them has made overtures, improper overtures, to the other and the other, being a nice girl, is tending to turn shyly away saying: "No. I cannot listen until I know what you have to offer. If the offer is sufficiently tempting, then I will listen to you." Let me say that this is no fantasy of my imagination. One of the shrewdest and most highly respected members of the journalistic profession, the political correspondent of the Irish Times, has made it quite clear that there are some members of the Labour Party whose virtue is more frail than others and who are quite prepared to accept these overtures and enter into, shall we say, an irregular association. You now have one Party which at the last election produced a policy for a just society—one day I may have the opportunity to examine that “Just Society” in detail but I am not going to try to do it this evening—and you have the other Party lately converted to socialism, and now the matchmaker, the kibitzer, is trying to make a match and saving that there are some members of the Labour Party who are quite prepared to do a deal with Fine Gael and there are some members of Fine Gael who are quite prepared to do a deal with the Labour Party and actually going as far as to outline the conditions of the settlement.
You are trying to find some sort of way in which you can unite yourselves in opposition to Fianna Fáil otherwise than on the sterile basis on which Fine Gael have acted ever since we came into office, a hatred of Fianna Fáil and all they stand for and for all they have done for the nation. You are an Opposition without any real sense of direction of where you ultimately want to go and therefore you are a weak Opposition. If we had this other system, then the Opposition would be much stronger. You would have a strong Opposition, strong because they would be united in purpose and in a sense of fidelity to one another and to the Party to which they belonged rather than the situation in which you are now. There is nothing to be ashamed of in wanting office because, if you are in politics, you are in politics in order to give effect to some principles you hold and for which you are prepared to make real sacrifices and, therefore, there is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking office and nothing to be ashamed of in holding office; the only thing about it is that, when you get office, at least you will have a common cause and a common principle to fight for and do not, as Deputy Booth has reminded us, put yourselves in the situation in which you were during the first Coalition when there was no loyalty uniting you and when every Cabinet Minister was out for his own aggrandisement, for his own political aggrandisement.
Now, I want to say this in relation to what I have already said; this proposed merger is also based on another fallacy. First of all, as I said, it is really a marriage of incompatibles, a marriage within the forbidden degrees of kindred, because it is really a marriage or miscegenation where the blood counts are completely different. There is not any possibility that such a marriage would last because of the incompatibles which you are trying to merge with each other. And you are assuming that this can be done because you can control the votes of those who hitherto supported you as independent Parties. You are assuming this merger can take place and you will come back into office by reason of it.
Let us look at that a little bit realistically. You are assuming that Irish voters are dumb driven cattle, that the Fine Gael voters will vote as Deputy Liam Cosgrave tells them or Deputy Michael O'Higgins will tell them, or that they will vote as Deputy James Tully tells them or Deputy Brendan Corish will tell them. The Labour and the Fine Gael voters, you think, will do this. You think that they are just two herds whom you can drive together and then drive the whole lot on, but that is not the situation.
Deputy Murphy referred to the result in Wicklow. I have already pointed out in the newspapers that so far as the East Limerick result was concerned, there were 1,600 odd votes —1,690, I think—Fine Gael transfers, 1,690 transfers from Fine Gael voters to Mr. O'Malley, to the Fianna Fáil Party, and there were 1,965 voters who did not transfer at all. That is the element with which you have got to deal. Similarly, in Wicklow you had—I will give the figures—after the fourth count there, Mr. Kavanagh of the Labour Party had 6,797 preferences; Miss O'Neill, representing Fianna Fáil, had 10,343; and Mr. Timmins of Fine Gael had 8,728. Now on the transfer of Kavanagh's votes—this is the real revelation, I think, to those who think that this merger will mean that, if you two Parties come together we will go out——
