Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 19 Jun 1968

Vol. 235 No. 9

Committee on Finance. - An Bille um an Tríú Leasú ar an mBunreacht, 1968: An Tuarascáil. Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1968: Report Stage.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Tairgim leasú 1:—

I move amendment No. 1:—

I leathanach 5, idir línte 18 agus 19, na míreanna seo a leanas a chur isteach:—

"(c) cuirfear na hailt atá leagtha amach i gCuid III den Sceideal a ghabhann leis an Acht seo isteach i ndiaidh alt 2 den téacs Gaeilge,

(d) cuirfear na hailt atá leagtha amach i gCuid IV den Sceideal a ghabhann leis an Acht seo isteach i ndiaidh alt 2 den téacs SacsBhéarla,

(e) Cuirfear na huimhreacha `8', `9', `10', `11' agus `12' in ionad uimhreacha ailt 3, 4, 5, 6 agus 7, faoi seach, sa dá théacs."

1. In page 4, between lines 18 and 19, to add to section 1 the following paragraphs:—

"(c) the sections set out in Part III of the Schedule to this Act shall be inserted after section 2 of the Irish text,

(d) the sections set out in Part IV of the Schedule to this Act shall be inserted after section 2 of the English text,

(e) the numbers `8', `9', `10', `11' and `12' shall be substituted for the numbers of sections 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, respectively, of both texts."

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy agrees, we could take amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 4 together.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Yes. The position is that the Government decided some time ago to amend the Constitution in two respects: first, by abolishing proportional representation and introducing the single member constituency; and, secondly, by introducing a tolerance of one-sixth. They decided to attempt these amendments by way of a single Bill or a package deal, as I have said on other occasions, and in that package deal provided in one Bill they included a Commission to delineate the single member constituencies. They did that as an inducement or as an insurance to the House and to the people that the constituencies would be fairly arranged. Public opinion, as expressed over the national television service until it was suppressed——

Mr. Boland

Public opinion?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Until it was suppressed, and as expressed in the free press of this country and the attitude of the Opposition Parties in this House made it apparent to the Minister and the Government that there was no hope of getting this package deal through in one Bill. The Government were then forced to abandon the idea of attempting these two amendments in one Bill. They decided to divide or split up the proposals. We were then presented with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill. I am taking them in this order because it demonstrates what I want to point out.

We were then presented with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, a Bill which proposes to establish single-member constituencies and to abolish PR. This Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill contained in it a provision that if the Bill became law, and if the single-member constituencies were established, those constituencies would be arranged, mapped out and delineated by a Commission consisting of a High Court judge, three members of the Government Party of the day and three members of the Opposition. Of course, the object of including that provision was by way of an inducement to the people to support it.

It was an assurance to the people that the Government would not gerrymander the constituencies, that they would not rig them to suit themselves, and that these new constituencies would be arranged and decided upon by a Commission consisting of three Government Deputies, three Opposition Deputies and presided over by an independent chairman in the person of a High Court or Supreme Court judge. As I say, the object in that was to lend respectability to the proposal, to give confidence to the people in the proposal and to endeavour in that way to get support for it in the country.

I am convinced that the Minister and the Government have no faith in their effort to get the Fourth Amendment accepted by the people. They know it is doomed to failure: they know the people will not accept it. They know very well that the people believe proportional representation is the best system for electing a Government to govern this country. They know that when the people have spoken, we will still have PR in the multi-seat constituencies and that they will have to operate that. The Government know well that their effort to parade 95 Fianna Fáil Deputies into this House after the next general election, on less than 40 per cent of the votes cast in that election, will not work because the people will not stand for it.

The Government then in their desire to establish themselves as a one-Party dictatorship here looked around for some other way of doing it and presented us with the tolerance Bill as it is called, that is, the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill. Under that Bill, the Government seek authority to depart from the provision of the Constitution which says that the same number of people in the country shall be required to elect a Deputy in one constituency as in another. That is what is known as the national average. The Government seek power in this House to depart by one-sixth from the national average, up or down. The effect of that is that under the Bill as it stands a population of 16,667 may be entitled to elect a Deputy in one constituency, while in another constituency it may take a population of 23,333 to elect a Deputy.

The Minister makes a case for this on the ground that it is necessary to provide for the rural areas as against the city areas. All that has been thrashed out, and it might not be relevant to thrash it out again on this amendment. The Minister with his majority has passed the Second and Committee Stages of this Bill which gives him authority to arrange the constituencies in the manner which I have just spoken of, that is, a population of 23,333 in one constituency may have a Deputy, while in another constituency a population of 16,667 only may have a Deputy.

It would be obvious to the House and obvious to the country that unless these constituencies were arranged in a scrupulously honest and impartial manner this proposal and this tolerance could lead to wholesale gerrymandering and rigging of the constituencies in the most disgraceful way to the unfair advantage of the Government of the day. The Government of the day which will arrange these constituencies, if this Bill goes through and is accepted by the people and the fourth amendment is not, are the present Government. The Minister in charge of electoral law and electoral reform is the Minister for Local Government. I do not think the Minister for Local Government will be offended if I describe him as the political boss of the Fianna Fáil Party, as a man who thinks from morning to night in terms of politics. as a man who has acted as Director of Elections for the Fianna Fáil Party throughout the length and breadth of this country——

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Thanks be to God.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): That is the man to whom we are being invited to hand over the arrangement of these constituencies. I think, therefore, the House and the country will be satisfied that it is something much more than an oversight, that it is something much more than an accident, that the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill—the tolerance Bill— contains no provision for a Commission to arrange the constituencies, although Deputy Booth, who seems to be holding the Minister's hand through this debate, seemed to think there was a provision in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill for a Commission.

I have raised this in one form or another through the Committee Stage of the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill. The answer I always got from the Minister was that he could not put the Commission provisions into both Bills because, if he did, the Constitution would look foolish. Now, the effect of the amendment I am moving is to incorporate into the tolerance Bill, the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill, the self-same constitutional safeguards by way of a Constituency Commission as the Minister has offered us in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

I should say I have deliberately drafted the amendment so that the Commission provisions, if they are incorporated in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill, will read, word for word, as the provisions for the Commission in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill. In other words, I have deliberately left out the amendments which I tried to get the Minister to accept to the Commission provisions in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill. I therefore move the amendment subject to a suggestion that, if the Minister accepts my amendment, he will incorporate in it the amendments I proposed to the Commission provisions of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

I say that the Commission provisions of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill should be incorporated in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill. I say they are equally necessary in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill to prevent gerrymandering, to prevent a rigging of the constituencies and to prevent the Minister from using the tolerance for unfair political purposes. Under the law as it stands at the present time—I have put it on the record of this House— by virtue of a decision of the Supreme Court on the Electoral Act of 1961, the Minister is entitled to take into consideration, in arranging his constituencies, county boundaries, town-land boundaries, electoral divisions, the presence of rivers, mountains and lakes but, in addition to that, he is taking the right here to operate the one-sixth tolerance without any regard to mountains, lakes, electoral divisions, townlands or county boundaries. I argued that out with the Minister on the Committee Stage. I leave it to the test of any constitutional authority to decide it.

I say, therefore, that the constitutional safeguard which is being offered in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill is absolutely essential here if this Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill is passed. If the amendment is not accepted and this safeguard is not given then we are open to wholesale gerrymandering, wholesale rigging of the constituencies, unfair discrimination and the operation of the political boss for political Party purposes.

Furthermore, I have specifically provided here in this amendment that, in the event of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1968, becoming law as the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1968, these amendments which I am now putting forward shall immediately stand repealed because they will not be required— they will be in the other Bill if, God forbid, that Bill is passed—and that gets over the Minister's argument that it would be silly to write them twice into the Bill.

I challenge the Minister to give any valid reason why, if he accepts this constitutional safeguard by way of the Constituency Commission in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, he will not accept it in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill. I hope he does accept it. But, if he does not accept it, I want to tell the House—and I would certainly tell the country—that the Minister refuses to accept it because he knows that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill will not be accepted and he is relying on the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill to carry out the evil political designs which prompted him, in the first instance, to revise our electoral law.

I conclude by challenging the Minister to say clearly to the House and to the country why he refuses to accept this amendment, if he does refuse to accept it: why he refuses to write into the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill the constitutional safeguards which he has offered to the country in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill — in the likely event of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill being rejected and the unlikely event of the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill being accepted.

Mr. S.D. Barrett

I see no reason why the Minister should refuse this amendment. What Deputy Fitzpatrick seeks to put into this Bill represents the only acceptable part of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill which has already been before the House. I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that if the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill does not pass the scrutiny of the Irish people—and I do not believe it will—it is terribly desirable that this amendment should go into the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

Time and again I have asked the Minister on another Stage of another Bill why, if he wished to amend the Constitution in the manner set out in Part VI of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, he did not introduce another Bill concurrently with the Third and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution incorporating this amendment by itself. He probably would have had the unanimous support of this House and he certainly would have had the support of the people for this highly desirable measure.

The Minister might take this opportunity to explain why he determined to put the Irish people in this dilemma by inserting only in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill these highly desirable measures. Does he mean to put to every voter who goes to the polls in the forthcoming referendum this proposal: if you do not vote for the destruction of PR, you cannot vote for a Constituency Commission? This is among the reasons why Deputy Fitzpatrick has suggested in this amendment that these highly desirable proposals should also be inserted in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

I would be deeply interested to know what reason the Minister can give for refusing to incorporate in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill these proposals, particularly having regard to the provision which Deputy Fitzpatrick has so thoughtfully inserted that in the event of the Fourth Amendment passing, these provisions will not come into force. There is no relevant reason why the Minister should refuse to put into the Third Amendment Bill something which he has proposed to the country already in a different context. If he does not do so, you are driven to the regrettable conclusions Deputy Fitzpatrick has already put forward. I await with interest the Minister's explanation why he inserted this completely irrelevant portion of the Bill into the Fourth Amendment Bill. Obviously, and in commonsense, it should be an entirely separate proposal. However, having done so, the Minister now finds himself in this dilemma: he has to give to the House and the people a cogent reason why if they want to reject the proposals in the Fourth Amendment, he will not give them a second bite of the cherry in the Third Amendment and give them an opportunity to vote for the proposals which on the Fourth Amendment he told us are highly desirable.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The amendment is eminently reasonable and would represent the point of view of most people. Constituency revision is always a matter which gives ground for suspicion in any country. I know that the revisions which have taken place here in the past have led to accusations of one kind or another, that the Government in office were utilising or certainly were in a position to utilise their office and that the Minister in particular was in a position to utilise his office, in order to revise the constituencies in the interest of his political Party. That is one of the facts of political life. In the neighbouring island of Britain, which the Minister so clearly admires and to which the Fianna Fáil Party are so clearly dedicated that they want to adopt the system of election they have there——

Mr. Boland

For themselves.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Of course, we know how British the Minister is and he and his colleague the Minister for Education——

Mr. Boland

I never wanted the British king here.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

They will soon be members under the British Crown. I know the kind of king the Minister wanted here.

Mr. Boland

It was not the British king.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Now that we are being told to be good little British boys and to do everything that Britain does, let us at least have regard to the fact—I am sure the Minister will, because he has learned the British lesson and the British way—that in Britain when they revise constituencies, they do it through a commission so that at least whatever emerges from the commission's recommendations and whatever leads to a constituency revision appears to be done fairly. As the Chair knows and as every Deputy knows, there is no doubt that the proposal to abolish PR will be emphatically defeated by the people. That is one of the facts of politics which the Minister is trying to digest, causing him some facial and other disquiet.

However, out of evil perhaps some good may come. I do not know what the fate of the tolerance Bill is going to be—I think it will also be defeated —but lest it might not be, it would be a very good safeguard and a very good protection for Deputies in all Parties to have the assurance—and I say this also to Fianna Fáil Deputies because it may also be necessary to safeguard them—that there will be no gerry-manderer either in one political Party or in occasional office in Government, who can revise constituencies according to his whim or fancy and wielding the big stick when doing so. That is what the law and the Constitution permits at the moment.

Indeed it is true to say, and it certainly was common gossip in the corridors of this House when the last constituency revisions took place, that a map was put up in the Fianna Fáil rooms of this House and, under the auspices of the then Minister for Local Government, all the Fianna Fáil Deputies proceeded to have their say about how constituency boundaries were going to affect their positions and what particular corns might be trodden upon. From that conclave of the Fianna Fáil Party, a Bill emerged here, introduced by the Minister for Local Government, providing for the revision of the constituencies from which Deputies to this Parliament were to be elected.

I do not think anyone could feel that that kind of operation was fair and just. It was not. It was quite unjust and undemocratic and quite out of accord with what the people would have regarded as cothrom na Féinne. While it is necessary and essential from time to time to revise or amend the areas and limits of existing constituencies, it should be done, like everything else, in the light of day, fairly and openly, not behind the locked doors of the Fianna Fáil cabal, not with the Fianna Fáil Party meeting and then issuing, as they did in relation to this referendum, a decision which they purport was a unanimous decision. That will not enable our democracy to develop and flourish. If that sort of practice continues, it will lead to the growth of suspicion and the frustration of Parliament itself.

Deputy Fitzpatrick's amendment is eminently fair. He is seeking, in relation to this amendment of the Constitution, to do what the Minister and the Government proposes in relation to the Fourth Amendment. In the case of the Fourth Amendment, it was a bit of sugar with which to coat the pill. Let us have a bit of sugar again now on tolerance also and, whatever proposal is put to the people, let us at least regard it as essential in relation to constituencies, or the system of election under which this Parliament henceforth will function, that there should be an independent Commission to define, on the one hand, the constituencies and, on the other, to advise on the limiting and on the boundaries of constituencies. I cannot imagine what argument could be put forward to suggest that Deputy Fitzpatrick's amendment is not a reasonable amendment, a fair amendment and an amendment capable of implementation. I certainly strongly support it.

Mr. Boland

As Deputies know, we are in fact proposing to ask the people to insert a provision for a Constituency Commission into the Constitution and, as I explained before, this provision obviously can appear only in one of these two Bills, two Bills introduced separately to please, as we thought, the Opposition. We are making a recommendation to the people to enable them to provide themselves with a more rational and a more appropriate system of election. We subdivided this proposal to please the Opposition. We will be asking the people to vote for both proposals.

I do not know what the Fine Gael Party will be asking the people to do. I find it hard to elicit exactly what they are in favour of and what they are not in favour of; whether some of them favour some of the proposals and others favour others I do not know. We will, in fact, ask the people to pass both these amendments of the Constitution. We expect the people will pass them because we are convinced of the good sense and intelligence of the people and their sense of fair play. We believe they will pass both these amendments and we, therefore, expect that this Constituency Commission will be provided by the people in the Constitution.

It was not our proposition that there should be two separate proposals. That was the proposition of the Opposition. The separation was made to meet the complaints of the Opposition that having both amendments in the one Bill was just too confusing for them; they could not understand them and it was at the behest of the Opposition that we divided the proposals into two. I did not know the Opposition wanted it divided into three or four until Deputy Barrett spoke. I do not know whether, in fact, they think we should have a separate question for each section and subsection in both these Bills. If we did that, we should certainly run out of colours for the different ballot papers and the Opposition would not be able to tell their supporters which proposal to support because a number of ballot papers would have to be the same colour. I cannot understand the suggestion that we should have all these different sections in each of these Bills voted on separately. That would seem to be what we are coming to; practically every day we have a new suggestion that we should have some particular aspect of what we regard as one single proposal decided separately. I was not here at the time of the debate on the Constitution of 1937. I do not know whether at that time the Opposition were making the case that each Article should be voted on separately. Had that been the position, had some been opposed and some not, we should have arrived eventually at a hotchpotch Constitution.

I am opposed to this amendment because it is objectionable in principle to put a hypothetical proposal such as this to the people for decision by way of referendum. Apart from that, I am advised that this hypothetical proposal is not in accordance with the procedure laid down by the Constitution for amending the Constitution. Any proposal to amend the Constitution must be a definitive proposal which, when approved by the people, becomes part of the Constitution. Deputy Fitzpatrick's amendment proposes to insert this hypothetical proposition into the Constitution and, in the event of a hypothetical situation arising, to have it repealed again automatically.

I am advised that the Constitution can be amended only by referendum. Deputy Fitzpatrick proposes the people should insert this in the Constitution and at the same time take it out again in the event of some hypothetical situation evolving. I am not a constitutional lawyer. I have to be guided by the legal advice available to me. The legal advice available to me is that this suggestion of Deputy Fitzpatrick would not be in accordance with the procedure for amending the Constitution. Indeed, I think any normally intelligent person will see that it would be ridiculous to do what is suggested by the Deputy.

We are asking the people to pass both these amendments. We believe they will do so and we have, therefore, every reason to believe that our proposal to insert in the Constitution a provision for a Constituency Commission will, in fact, be carried by the people.

I am also advised that amendment No. 2, as drafted, does not achieve the result intended by the Deputy. In fact, I am advised it would not be possible to draft such an amendment. Obviously the difficulty in which the Opposition find themselves in relation to this Commission stems from the segregation of the proposals, proposals which were originally intended to be incorporated in a single Bill. I confess myself unable to find out exactly what the Opposition want. When these proposals were together in one Bill, they were not satisfied. They could not understand them: they wanted them separated. We separated them and then we had to make the arrangement that the provision for the Constituency Commission should go into one Bill. Now they want them back again. The assumption, surely, was that if they wanted them separated, they were going to accept one of the proposals and not the other. Apparently, that is not the position. They do not know what their position is. They do not know whether they are in favour of one and not in favour of the other or if they are opposed to both proposals. I think it is clear that the Labour Party are opposed to both. If you are opposed to both, all you have to do is to campaign against both, and if the people accept your view, we will have the present position carrying on.

We subdivided these to oblige the Opposition. I admit we were trying to do the impossible. We were trying to eliminate the confusion from the minds of the Opposition and that has proved to be completely impossible. I suppose we were foolish to try to please the Opposition because that is something that cannot be done. All through this debate it has been a question of, "We want them separated", "We want them put together again." I do not think the Opposition know what they want.

When a decision had to be taken to divide the proposals that we were putting before the people we had to decide into which Bill this proposal for a Constituency Commission should go. The Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill is, in fact, doing no more, possibly doing less, but certainly, doing no more than re-establishing the status quo which existed up to 1960 when the Fine Gael Party took an action in the High Court to have the interpretation of this phrase, “so far as it is practicable”, that had existed up to that time, declared to be in breach of the Constitution. This Bill is proposing to re-establish the position that existed from 1922 until Fine Gael took steps to have it declared unconstitutional, in 1960.

On the other hand, the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill proposes a fundamental change in the electoral system. It proposes to establish single-member constituencies instead of multi-member constituencies and it appeared to us that this was a more fundamental change and, therefore, this being a proposal that would require a complete recasting of the scheme of constituencies, that, when we had, in order to please the Opposition, to separate the proposals and put the provision for the Constituency Commission into one Bill, this was the more appropriate one into which to put it because, as I have said, the Third Amendment is merely getting back to the status quo that existed up to 1959.

It certainly seems to me to be more appropriate to put it into the other Bill because the purpose of the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill is to get away from the position which the Fine Gael Party arranged to have established here which required this operation of detaching from one county portion of the population and attaching it to another county and another constituency and, if it is possible to gerrymander in this country—and, personally, I do not think that it is; I certainly would not know how to go about it——

Mr. James Tully

Ask Tomás Ó Maoláin. He is an expert on that.

Mr. Boland

——surely, the best way in which this can be done is by this process of taking portion of one county out and putting it into another? This Bill here proposes to get back to the position where that will not be required by the Constitution, where the Government or the Oireachtas in revising constituencies will not be compelled to go through this process of taking bits of one county out and putting them into another. If it is, in fact, possible to gerrymander, surely these are the most suitable circumstances for doing it where you have a selection as to the portion of one county that you take out to put into another in order to comply with this requirement of the Constitution that the Opposition are trying to retain?

Obviously, then, if the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill is passed and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill is not, we will be establishing a position in which we will be required to adhere as far as possible, within the maximum divergence proposed, to county boundaries. So, therefore, the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill will make it more difficult to indulge in gerrymandering. Accordingly, when a decision had to be made to put the Constituency Commission into one Bill rather than the other, the obvious one to put it into was the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

I find that a number of charges have been made again here on this amendment which were also made on the Committee Stage of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill. We have the charge again made by Deputy Fitzpatrick that this is going to lead to one-party dictatorship. I do not think it was this Bill that he was talking about; it was the other Bill. He was talking about the whole proposal. Because, despite the fact that, in order to facilitate Deputy Fitzpatrick and the Opposition in general, we separated these two Bills, the experience has been that Deputies opposite are unable, in fact, to separate them in speaking here on either of these Bills. Deputy Fitzpatrick again made the charge that the proposal that we are making will result in this one-party dictatorship and since he persists in making this charge I want to point out again to him exactly what the making of this charge means. It means that Deputy Fitzpatrick is saying that in circumstances in which there would be a clear confrontation between the Parties in 144 single-seat constituencies——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Rigged constituencies.

Mr. Boland

——it is inconceivable that either now or at any time in future either Fine Gael or Labour could persuade in a majority of these constituencies more people than Fianna Fáil can that their proposals for the conduct of the country's affairs are the better. That is an admission by Deputy Fitzpatrick, by the Fine Gael Party, surely, that our policy is, in fact, better than theirs!

If their policy is better it must be possible for him to attract to their Party people who are capable of explaining this to the public. Or do they consider the people are too stupid to be able to recognise what is good for them? I would not be surprised if that is what they actually have in mind, because they have operated down through the years obviously on the theory that anything at all is good enough to put before the people. We have operated on the opposite assumption: that the people are capable of understanding the principles that are involved in good government, and we have not been disappointed. The people have continued to support us and to reject the unrealistic policies put before them by the Opposition Parties with the exception of the two occasions on which, because of multiplicity of Parties that this system of election was designed to foster, the people found it impossible to make an effective decision at all and which gave rise to two disastrous coalition Governments.

Deputy Fitzpatrick again went on to this question of the proposed maximum divergence of one-sixth from the national average of population per Deputy. He again repeated the assertion, which he must know to be wrong, that this proposal of ours will mean that in some counties it will take 16,690 people to elect a Deputy and in others it will take 23,366. I say that Deputy Fitzpatrick must know that this is in fact wrong because the provision in the Constitution refers to total population.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Population, I said.

Mr. Boland

Deputy Fitzpatrick should know, first, that a person has to be over 21 years of age to be on the register and that newborn babies have not votes. He should know that no aliens have votes and that people have votes only in the constituencies in which they are on the register. The fact that people happen to be resident, say, in an hotel in Dublin city on the date of the census does not mean that they can vote in that constituency. The result of what Deputy Fitzpatrick and his colleagues, both in the Labour and Fine Gael benches, want to establish would not be as he alleges that it would take 16,650 voters to elect a Deputy in rural Ireland and 23,366 voters in urban areas. He knows that is not true. In fact, the position he wants to establish is that in parts of Dublin city it will take 10,206 voters to elect a Deputy, whereas in rural Ireland it will take up to 13,567 to elect a Deputy. Deputy Fitzpatrick knows this. He has the figures available to him. All he needs are the figures of the census and the register.

He knows that in the area of Dublin North-West the voters form less than 51 per cent of the population and that therefore if a division is made in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution he wants to maintain it will take 10,206 voters to elect a Deputy there. He knows that in Deputy O'Donnell's constituency of Donegal South-West the voters form 67.741 per cent of the population and that, therefore, if the situation he and his Party want to retain is retained, it will take 13,567 voters to elect a Deputy in Deputy O'Donnell's part of Donegal. In fact, the situation Fine Gael and Labour are trying to establish is a position which will differentiate in this way as between voters in rural areas and voters in urban areas. All this Bill is asking is that there should be a maximum divergence of one-sixth from the national average to take cognisance of the practical considerations of county boundaries and the areas and accessibility of constituencies. As Deputy Fitzpatrick knows, the result of this all over the country as a whole would certainly be to do no more than equate the value of a rural vote generally to the value of an urban vote.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Why not give us the Commission?

Mr. Boland

I have told you. Deputy Fitzpatrick wants me to keep repeating myself. I have told him why I cannot give him the Commission. He asked us to split the proposal. Deputy Fitzpatrick and his friends want to do this because they have abandoned rural Ireland. They have decided to try to retain a position which gives a differential in the voting power to people resident in the built-up areas. They have decided to oppose this proposal which, as I said, will do no more than equate over the country as a whole the value of a rural vote and an urban vote.

Mr. L'Estrange

If Fianna Fáil had not driven one million people from rural Ireland in the past 30 years, there would be no necessity for it at all.

Mr. Boland

When Deputy L'Estrange has the land of Ireland divided into farms which will support a minimum of 400 cows per farm, how many people will that drive from rural Ireland?

Mr. L'Estrange

Our policy is to keep them on the land of Ireland.

Mr. Boland

One thing is certain. We will never know because Deputy L'Estrange will never get the opportunity of dividing the land of Ireland into farms capable of supporting a minimum of 400 cows. It is no wonder Deputy Costello described the rural vote as the "cow vote".

Mr. L'Estrange

There are members of your Party with 1,000 acres of land. Deputy Crinion has 1,000 acres of land. He joined the Fianna Fáil Party so it would not be divided and it has not been divided since.

Mr. Crowley

That is a disgraceful allegation. Why not say it when Deputy Crinion is in the House?

Mr. L'Estrange

I did say it to him.

Mr. Crowley

And he denied it.

Mr. L'Estrange

He did not deny it. It is quite true. He joined the Fianna Fáil club so that it would not be divided.

Mr. Boland

He did not sell it to foreigners.

Mr. L'Estrange

You have the whole country sold to them, and it is not your own.

Mr. Boland

Would Deputy L'Estrange like to know what he bought in exchange for the farm? Deputy Costello described the rural vote in contemptuous terms as "the cow vote". It is obvious that the Fine Gael Party look on the rural voters as cattle, as people who will continue to vote for them no matter what they do to them. We have a fair idea of the people who support Fine Gael in rural Ireland. We know that they are not easy to change but we will let them know exactly what you are doing. We do not think they are so bovine as Deputy Costello seems to think. We think they will be able to see exactly what you are doing — that the Fine Gael Party have decided to deliberately devalue the vote of every person in rural Ireland in favour of increased voting power for everybody in urban areas. They have deliberately and cynically decided to try to divide the country on the basis of urban population versus rural population.

Mr. L'Estrange

It is Fianna Fáil who have tried to do that. The Minister for Agriculture is doing it with the farmers.

Mr. Boland

They will not succeed in doing it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): On a point of order, might I respectfully ask how this is related to my amendment to insert in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill the Commission provision of the Fourth Amendment Bill?

Mr. Boland

I am dealing specifically with a point raised and spoken about at length by Deputy Fitzpatrick to the effect that the proposals in this Bill would result in it taking a substantially greater number of voters to elect a Deputy in urban areas than in rural areas. I am pointing out that is not so and the people of the cities do not want it to be so. They will be quite satisfied to have the same effectiveness attached to their votes as to those in rural areas. And that is all we propose to do. I do not say that taking cognisance of county boundaries and so on will result in it taking exactly the same number of voters to elect a Deputy in every single constituency. I do not really see why it should be necessary for me to go into all this again. But for the fact that Deputy Fitzpatrick insisted on bringing it up again, I would not go over what I pointed out to him on Committee Stage.

It is not necessary to have exactly the same number of voters per Deputy in, say, Limerick as in Kerry. I do not think in order to do that it should be necessary to transfer part of the population of County Limerick to Kerry.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister is out of order.

Mr. Boland

I am only replying to the Deputy. I do not see why it should be necessary to do that in County Cavan——

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Minister finished 20 minutes ago but he has not sat down.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I related my arguments to the amendment.

Mr. Boland

Since it hurts Deputy Fitzpatrick so much, I shall not proceed to deal with what he is trying to establish in County Cavan.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I shall deal with County Cavan. I dealt with the Minister and his Party in Cavan in the last general election when their vote went down by 41 per cent.

Mr. Boland

The people of Cavan will know themselves——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): That is where I dealt with you and took a seat from you.

Mr. Boland

——before this referendum takes place that they are entitled to three seats. They will know it is not necessary to breach the county boundary but that Deputy Fitzpatrick is trying to insist that the boundaries of Cavan will be unnecessarily breached.

Deputy Fitzpatrick wants these two measures brought together again: that seems to be the whole trend of the argument on both Committee Stages but Deputy Barrett wants a third Bill involving a third ballot and possibly if we gave him that he would want a fourth and a fifth. I think, in fact, Deputies opposite know this would be impracticable and that it would not be reasonable to ask the people to vote on three or four or five referenda at the same time.

Deputy O'Higgins has once again raised the question of the British system and since it was relevant for him to raise it at this stage, it must be relevant for me to reply. I think everybody knows that the voting system we propose is the system that operates in Britain. We also know on the authority of Deputy Dillon, if on no other authority, that the system we have here was invented in Britain but not for elections in Britain. It was invented to be inflicted on people like us who insisted on leaving the British Empire. We know why it was imposed on us and not imposed in Britain. In fact the British Parliament set up a royal commission to consider the system of election that they invented for us. They went into every aspect of it and decided that this system certainly was not for them.

Both of these systems could be described as British systems, one being the system they have for themselves and the other being the system they invented for people like us. The fact that it has not yet produced the results it was designed to produce is due to Fianna Fáil. The results it must eventually produce are obvious; they will be similar to what is happening on the Continent. It is designed, as Deputies opposite admit, to arrange for the representation of small sectional parties. That being so it is obviously designed to encourage the formation of small sectional parties and it has had this effect in the past, as I have pointed out. There were two occasions on which this confusion of the electorate took place and there can be no doubt that this will eventually develop again because the system is designed to produce exactly that result.

Deputy O'Higgins is apparently very much in favour of a Constituency Commission now. I should like to remind him that on 21st January, 1959 on the Committee Stage of the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill at that time, there was an amendment, amendment No. 1 to section 3 of the Schedule, moved by Deputy O'Higgins and this amendment proposed that the provision for a Constituency Commission that was in the Bill should be removed and that in future the Oireachtas should revise the constituencies instead of a commission. Deputy O'Higgins is now on a completely different line. That is typical of the lack of consistency in the Fine Gael Party but obviously the Deputy was given a different brief in 1959 and now he is suddenly in favour of a Constituency Commission.

Let me quote what he had to say at column 946 of Volume 172 on 21st January, 1959:

...we say in this amendment:

"Forget about your Constituency Commission. Let any law revising constituencies be passed here through the Dáil. Let it be supported and defended in the Dáil. Let the Minister who seeks to introduce it take full responsibility for it in this House where he can be challenged in the broad light of day with the press looking on and with the public entitled to admission". We say that is the responsible course for any Minister or any Government genuinely intending to do the right thing to adopt.

Now, not alone does he want one Constituency Commission; he wants two. As I have said, there is great difficulty in trying to interpret the mind of the Fine Gael Party.

Mr. P. O'Donnell

What did Dev say?

Cuireadh an díospóireacht ar ath-ló.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 20th June, 1968.