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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 27 Nov 1968

Vol. 237 No. 8

Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968: Second Stage.

Tairgim: "Go léafar an Bille don Dara hUair."

Sé an cuspóir atá leis an mBille seo ná na Dáilcheantair a athmheas ag féacaint do na hathraithe ar dháileadh an daonra a léiríodh sa daonáirimh a rinneadh i 1966.

Faoi réir an Acht Toghcháin (Leasú), 1961, 144 chomhalta an líon comhaltaí atá i nDáil Éireann faoi láthair. Nuair a bhí an tAcht sin faoi bhráid an Oireachtais, glacadh go foirleathan leis an líon sin agus ní beartaítear é a athrú anois. Os rud é, ámh, go bhfuil Acht na bliana 1961 á athghairm anois beartaítear an fhoráil sin a athachtú in alt 2 den Bhille seo.

Forálaíonn alt 3 gurb iad na Dáilcheantair a shonráitear san Sceideal a ghabhann leis an mBille seo a bheidh ina Dháilcheantair tar éis an céad lánscor eile ar Dháil Éireann agus forálaíonn alt 4 gurb é an líon comhaltaí a shonraítear sa tríú cholún den Sceideal a thoghfar do gach Dáilcheantar ar leith díobh. Sna haltanna eile, leagtar amach na forálacha is iondúil i mBille dá leithéid seo.

Sa mheamram mínithe a cuireadh amach leis an mBille, tugadh achomair de fhorálacha an Sceidil agus tá léarscáileanna curtha ar fáil i leabharlann an Oireachtais a thaispeánann na Dáilcheantair mar atá siad faoi láthair agus mar atá molta sa Bhille.

Ag féacaint don bhreith a thug an Árd-Chúirt ar an Acht Toghcháin (Leasú), 1959, agus don bhreith a thug an Chúirt Uachtarach ar an mBille Toghcháin (Leasú), 1961, bhí iachall orainn ag socrú na Dáilcheantair nua dúinn, deimhin a dhéanamh de nach mbeadh an líon daoine os coinne an Teachta, os cionn ná faoi bhun, an meánlíon náisiúnta méid is mó ná míle duine i gcás ar bith. Lena chois sin, thugamar aird ar an gcoibhneas atá idir an daonra agus líon na dtoghthóirí sna codanna éagsúla den tír sa dóigh nach mbeadh difríocht ró-mhór idir fiúntas an vóta in áit amháin seachas áit eile. Thugamar aird, freisin, ar theoranta na gcontaethe, ach ag féachaint do na forálacha Bunreachta agus do bhreitheanna na gcúirteanna ina dtaobh, níor éirigh linn na teoranta san a choinneáil slán ach i gcor-chás.

Dar ndóigh, tá an-chuid slite ann ina bhféadfaí na Dáilcheantair a athmheas agus, cé go bhfuil an Rialtas den tuairim nach inmholta daoine a scaireadh ón a gcontae féin i gcás ar bith, táthar sásta gurb iad na tairiscintí atá sa Bhille na tairiscintí is lú locht.

The purpose of this Bill is to revise the Dáil constituencies in the light of changes in the distribution of the population recorded in the 1966 census returns.

The present total membership of the Dáil was fixed by the Electoral (Amendment) Act, 1961, at one hundred and forty-four. There was general acceptance of this figure when that Act was before the Oireachtas and no change is now being proposed. Since, however, the 1961 Act is being repealed, this particular provision is being re-enacted in section 2 of the Bill.

Section 3 provides that, after the next dissolution of Dáil Éireann, the constituencies will be those specified in the Schedule to the Bill and the number of members for each constituency will, under section 4, be as set out in the third column of the Schedule. The remaining sections contain the consequential and other provisions usual in a Bill of this kind.

A summary of the provisions of the Schedule has been included in the explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill and maps indicating the effects of these provisions have been provided in the Oireachtas Library. In deference to views expressed some time ago by Members opposite I will be as brief as possible and confine myself at this stage to certain general considerations which are essential for a proper understanding of the proposals in the Bill.

It is necessary in the first place to be quite clear about the relevant provisions of the Constitution. Subsection 3º of section 2 of Article 16 lays down that:

The ratio between the number of members to be elected at any time for each constituency and the population of each constituency, as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall, so far as it is practicable, be the same throughout the country.

I would draw particular attention to the reference to the number of Members "to be elected at any time". From this it appears that equality of population at the time of the revision itself is not enough and that having regard to the 1966 Census returns, which show substantial departures from parity in the case of many constituencies, a further revision of constituencies as requested in Parliamentary Questions by a number of opposition Deputies must now be undertaken.

The requirement of equality in the ratio of Members to population is qualified by the phrase "so far as it is practicable". What this means has to be determined in the light of two court decisions. The High Court held in 1961 that the relevant provisions of the Electoral (Amendment) Act, 1959, were unconstitutional because they had produced some substantial departures from the average population ratio per Deputy and that there were no relevant circumstances to justify these departures. In other words the Court ruled that deviations of up to 17 per cent from the national average were excessive and could not be justified on the grounds of the desirability of adhering to county boundaries, having due regard to geographical features and so on. The judgment did suggest, however, that a deviation of up to 1,000 would be acceptable.

The 1961 Bill provided for a scheme of constituencies in which the maximum deviation was of this order. That Bill was referred by the President to the Supreme Court who advised that it was not repugnant to the Constitution. The following extract from the Supreme Court judgment setting out their attitude towards the provisions of subsection 3º of section 2 of Article 16 of the Constitution has particular relevance here. I quote:

The sub-clause recognises that exact parity in the ratio between members and the population of each constituency is unlikely to be obtained and is not required. The decision as to what is practicable is within the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas. It may reasonably take into consideration a variety of factors, such as the desirability so far as possible to adhere to well-known boundaries such as those of counties, townlands and electoral divisions. The existence of divisions created by such physical features as rivers, lakes and mountains may also have to be reckoned with. The problem of what is practicable is primarily for the Oireachtas, whose members have a knowledge of the problems and difficulties to be solved which this Court cannot have. Its decision should not be reviewed by this Court unless there is a manifest infringement of the Article. This Court cannot, as is suggested, lay down a figure above or below which a variation from what is called the national average is not permitted. This, of course, is not to say that a Court cannot be informed of the difficulties and may not pronounce on whether there has been such a serious divergence from uniformity as to violate the requirements of the Constitution.

To justify the Court in holding that the sub-section has been infringed it must, however, be shown that the failure to maintain the ratio between the number of members for each constituency and the population of each constituency involves such a divergence as to make it clear that the Oireachtas has not carried out the intention of the sub-clause.

In the opinion of the Court the divergencies shown in the Bill are within reasonable limits.

We thus have the position that the Oireachtas may have regard to a variety of factors unless there is "a manifest infringement of the Article". The Supreme Court refused to lay down a figure above or below which a variation from the national average would be permitted but it did hold that the divergencies shown in the 1961 Bill were within reasonable limits. The Supreme Court stated that the problem was primarily one for the Oireachtas but it also made it clear that the Courts could pronounce as to whether the Constitution has been violated and since the only figure mentioned as an acceptable divergence is the 1,000 indicated by the High Court, it is clear that this is the only figure that can be utilised with impunity. In the recent referendum a proposal to allow a greater divergence from the national average in order to take account of the factors mentioned above was decisively rejected.

Against this background, it is clear that in no case should the population ratio diverge from the national average by more than 1,000 and the present proposed revision has been prepared on this basis.

On the basis that a deviation from the national average of 1,000 persons per Deputy is tolerable, only 14 of the 38 constituencies determined by the 1961 Act are now within the constitutional limits. Eighteen constituencies have a population per Deputy of more than 1,000 below the national average while in another six the population per Deputy ratio is more than 1,000 above the average. If the existing constituencies are disregarded entirely and if, instead, we look at the existing counties, we find that, even if each county could be considered in isolation from its neighbours, 20 of the twenty-seven administrative counties could not, within the tolerance permitted, be dealt with within the confines of the county boundary, that is, without either grouping the county with another, adding part of its population to another or adding to it part of the population of another county. The only counties which, if considered in isolation, could be dealt with within the confines of the county boundary are: Cork (including the city), Dublin (including the city), Kilkenny, Limerick (including the city), Mayo, Wexford and Wicklow. However, even in the case of some of these seven counties, breaching of the boundaries or grouping with another county is unavoidable because of the position in neighbouring counties.

A consideration which it appears to be reasonable to bear in mind is the desirability of ensuring within the permissible limits of population per Deputy that there should not be too great a disparity in the value of the votes to be cast in different areas. A revision based solely on population is bound to produce such a disparity because the proportion of voters to population varies throughout the country. In the Dublin area, for example, voters on the 1966-67 Register of electors represent 55.4 per cent of the population enumerated on 17th April, 1966, while in the area west of the Shannon the proportion is 63 per cent.

As will be apparent from the tabular statement circulated in reply to a Parliamentary Question by Deputy G. Collins on 26th November, 1968, the allocation of seats on the basis of population within the limits of a divergence of 1,000 results in the vote in the Dublin area being more valuable than the rural vote.

For example in 1966-67 which is the registration year closest to the date of the census the estimated electorate per member for the proposed constituency of Dublin North-West is 10,520. The corresponding estimated figure for the proposed constituency of South-West Donegal is 13,240. The vote in Dublin North-West will, therefore, be over 25 per cent more valuable than the vote in South-West Donegal, although in the case of Dublin North-West the population per Deputy is 21,002 while in South-West Donegal the population per Deputy is only 19,449. In other words the result of adhering to the Courts' interpretation of the Constitution is that the number of voters per Deputy is highest in a constituency with one of the lowest populations per Deputy while the number of voters per Deputy is lowest in a constituency with one of the highest populations per Deputy. If in each of these two constituencies the population per Deputy were fixed at the national average there would be 13,560 voters per Deputy in South-West Donegal and only 10,210 voters per Deputy in North-West Dublin so that if seats were allocated on the basis of strict parity of population per Deputy a vote in North-West Dublin would be 33 per cent more valuable than a vote in South-West Donegal.

We must also consider the question of how many Deputies should represent a constituency. In the present Bill, we propose an increase in the number of three-seat constituencies from 17 to 26 and in the number of four-seat constituencies from 12 to 14 while the number of five seat constituencies is being reduced from nine to two. Five-seat constituencies have proved unwieldy in practice, particularly in rural areas, and are being retained only in the case of two constituencies which do not have to be disturbed to comply with the Constitution.

It is clear that the only way of avoiding the breaching of county boundaries is by aggregating a number of counties together but as this would result in constituencies returning as many as 13 Deputies most people would not regard it as an acceptable solution. If the constituencies based on individual counties are to retain their identity as far as possible and if the maximum divergence from the national average is not to exceed 1,000, then the boundaries of more than half of the counties must be breached. We have kept these transfers at an absolute minimum and indeed if county boroughs are taken into account, the total population of transferred areas under the proposed revision will in fact be less than is the case at present.

It seems reasonable to deal with the area comprising the province of Connaught, the County Donegal and the County Clare as a unit. This area at present returns 33 Deputies. The population according to the 1966 census is 584,096. If 30 Deputies are allocated to the area the average population per Deputy will be 19,470, for 29 Deputies the average will be 20,141 and for 28 Deputies the average will be 20,860. The area can therefore be dealt with within the constitutional provision by allocating it 28, 29 or 30 seats. The 1966/67 register of electors which is the register most nearly corresponding to the date of the 1966 census provides the figures for voters which most nearly correspond to the population figures in the 1966 census and on the basis of these figures the number of votes per Deputy for 30 seats would be 12,295, for 29 seats the number is 12,718 and for 28 seats 13,173, while the national average is 11,869. In other words, although at 30 seats the population per Deputy will be near the minimum allowed, the number of voters per Deputy will be above the national average. If 31 seats were allocated the population per Deputy would be below the minimum permissible but even at this figure the number of voters per Deputy would be above the national average. It is clear then that to allocate anything less than 30 seats would result in an excessive devaluation of the actual votes in this area as compared with other areas and the Government accordingly decided that there should be 30 seats in this region.

In this area west of the Shannon then, a loss of three seats is necessary and most county boundaries must be breached. The population of County Clare is too small for four seats and too large for three and there must, therefore, be a breach in the boundary between Clare and Galway. The population of Galway is too high for seven seats and too low for eight seats. At the northern end of the area, the population of County Donegal is too large for five seats and too small for six and, accordingly, the boundary between Donegal and Leitrim must be breached. The population of County Roscommon is too small for three seats and there must, therefore, be a boundary adjustment between that the county and county Leitrim, as at present. The population of Sligo is too small to support three seats and—again, as at present—portion of Leitrim must be joined with it to form a constituency. The only county in the area which can preserve its boundary is County Mayo.

In the general area of South Leinster no change is necessary. To the north of this area, however, we find that the population of the constituencies of Longford-Westmeath, Cavan and Monaghan have fallen below the required minimum ratio. The most obvious change to make here is to restore to Longford-Westmeath the portion of County Westmeath ceded to the Kildare constituency in 1961, to transfer portions of Meath to the Cavan and Monaghan constituencies and to recoup Meath from Kildare, the population of which would be too low for four seats and too high for three seats.

In Munster, other than Clare, the only change of importance is in the Cork-Kerry area. The population of Kerry is too small to support six seats and much too large for five seats in accordance with the Constitutional provision. It is accordingly proposed to cede part of South-West Cork to South Kerry, and to make further adjustments as between the present North and South Kerry constituencies. At present, Cork borough constituency does not extend over the whole of the county borough area, and it includes part of Cork county. It has been decided to form two constituencies within the county borough boundary and to increase the number of Deputies for the city from five to six. There will be a reduction of one in the representation for North-East Cork and a consequential rearrangement of the three county constituencies. I should mention that the population figures quoted in the memorandum for the two Cork city constituencies are still tentative and because of certain practical difficulties it may not be possible to arrive immediately at definitive figures.

Having allocated seats in this way there are 38 seats left for the Dublin area and this gives an average population of 20,922 per Deputy which is within the permissible limits. The average number of voters per Deputy in accordance with the 1966/67 register of electors is 11,589 compared with the national average of 11,869. In other words in this area while the population per Deputy is close to the upper limit allowed, the number of voters per Deputy is below the national average whereas the opposite is the case in the western area. If the city and county are to be kept separate there must be 11 seats in the county. This leaves 27 for the city but this would give a slightly too high average. There must therefore be a slight adjustment between the city and county and it is proposed to add the Baldoyle ward, which with a population of 2,097 is one of the least populous wards in the city, to the county. The population of the city north of the river Liffey is 287,846 and the population of the south side is 280,926. With 27 seats therefore it is clear that one constituency must cross the river. The population figures for Dublin city constituencies as indicated in the Explanatory Memorandum are provisional. In order to keep within the limits of ±1,000, a number of wards in the city had to be divided and the population of each of the divided portions is being checked by the Census Office.

The revision of constituencies must be based on the figures in the 1966 Census. Consequently, it is not permissible to take account of population changes that are known to have taken place since then and that are known to be imminent. For instance none of the dwellings in the National Building Agency housing scheme at Ballymun were occupied on 17th April, 1966, but before the next Census 3,600 families will be living in the locality. Similarly the continuing large scale local authority and private housing developments in places like Kilbarrack, Coolock/Kilmore, and Ballyboden or the developments planned in Tallaght, Ballybrack, Rathfarnham, Blanchardstown and Swords cannot be taken into consideration. It seems certain, therefore, that at least as far as the Dublin area is concerned it will be possible to make demands for a further revision of constituencies as soon as the next census to be taken in 1971 is published.

There is one final point I would like to make. The Electoral (Amendment) Act, 1959, which was supported by all Parties in this House, effected a virtually agreed revision of constituencies which involved no breach of county boundaries. This revision was challenged in the High Court by the then Fine Gael Senator, Dr. John O'Donovan. When the High Court held that the Act was unconstitutional, a new electoral Bill was prepared which involved widespread breaching of county boundaries. This was bitterly criticised in the Dáil, mainly on the grounds that the Government should have introduced an amendment of the Constitution to eliminate this defect. When the 1966 Census returns were published it was evident that an even less acceptable revision would have to be undertaken. The Government decided that the people should be given an opportunity of deciding whether the Constitution should be amended to remove the difficulty. The people have decided against an amendment and we must all accept their decision. The necessary revision could, of course, be made in very many different ways and while the Government believe that all adjustments between one county and another are undesirable it is considered that the proposals in the Bill are the least objectionable.

(Cavan): I notice that the Minister for Local Government, in concluding his Second Reading speech, departed from the usual formula, in that he has not recommended the Bill to the House. I can indeed well understand his reluctance to do so. I presume he will rely on his majority to steamroll it through the House and for that reason he has departed from what appears to be the usual formula of strongly recommending the measure to the House.

Indeed, Sir, the introduction of this Bill by the present Minister for Local Government must be an exercise unique in democracy. I say that because we have had a long experience throughout the present year of the Minister's attitude towards our electoral laws and in particular his attitude towards the system of proportional representation which it now proposes to operate.

Does that arise on this Bill, Sir?

I think the Deputy is in order.

Proportional representation?

I would say very much so.

(Cavan): In my respectful opinion, Sir, if PR is not relevant it is rather difficult to see what we are going to talk about.

The Deputy could talk about the Bill.

(Cavan): And proportional representation.

If the Deputy can find anything to say about it.

(Cavan): I did not open my mouth when the Minister read his prepared script and I should be glad now if the Minister would remain quiet and listen to what I have to say. I respectfully submit to the Chair that a discussion on PR and the referendum and on the decision of the people is relevant. I find it very difficult to understand how the present Minister for Local Government should have the courage or the cheek to come here and introduce this Bill to reform the electoral laws. I say that because on the 21st of February—I want to put this on record—the Minister for Local Government introduced the Third and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. Those measures got a Second Reading from 28th February to 3rd April. They were taken in Committee from 15th May to 19th June and we had the Report Stage from 19th June to 26th June and the final Stages from 20th June to 3rd July. This House was engaged in discussing proposals by the present Minister for Local Government to change the entire electoral system here from the 28th February to 3rd July, 1968 and, indeed, from that date until 16th October we had a debate in the country on the selfsame proposals.

We know from the Minister's contributions here and in the Seanad that he does not believe in the system of proportional representation under which Members are elected to Dáil Éireann, that he believes it is an unworkable system.

I am afraid the Deputy is going into detail on this particular question which does not relevantly arise on the Bill.

(Cavan): I am challenging, with the greatest respect, the qualifications of the Minister for Local Government to make recommendations to this House on electoral reform. The Bill contains proposals for electoral reform and, with the greatest respect, I think nothing could be more material.

That does not open a debate on the whole question of electoral reform. The Bill is for a specific purpose.

(Cavan): I do not want to have any difference of opinion with the Chair and I would bow to the ruling of the Chair but I submit pretty strongly that we are now debating the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968, and this is the Second Stage of the Bill. In my respectful opinion, that leaves a discussion on electoral reform wide open.

The Deputy is aware that on the Second Reading Members are entitled to refer to what can relatively be put into the Bill as well as what it contains, its actual provisions.

(Cavan): Surely I am entitled to refer to the qualifications of the man who introduced the Bill and to what, in my opinion, has prompted him to put into the Bill what is in it?

Surely that is relevant? The whole Bill concerns electoral reform.

The purpose of the Bill is to revise Dáil constituencies in the light of the 1966 Census.

Mal I call the attention of the Chair to the fact that the Opposition have not put down a reasoned amendment giving reasons why the Bill should be rejected and because they have not done so they are very narrowly confined to what is in the Bill or what should be in the Bill.

We are talking about what should be in the Bill.

(Cavan): I submit that it is quite in order to criticise the Minister for Local Government, to criticise his attitude to electoral reform and his attitude to PR which he is now trying to operate and that it is also quite in order for me to say—and I want to go on record as saying—that it is manifestly absurd for the Minister for Local Government, who is on record as saying that PR is unworkable, to introduce a measure to operate it. That is the case I want to make. I submit that, unless I am permitted to make that case, I am being unfairly treated. When interrupted I was saying that throughout this year both in the House and in the country the Minister has made the case that the system of PR laid down in the Constitution here is unworkable. He put that case to the people and it was rejected. Any self-respecting Minister for Local Government whose proposals had been rejected by a majority of practically 250,000 electors would resign from the position and would not come to the House with proposals further to amend the electoral laws.

I believe this is not a bona fide effort by the Minister to amend the electoral laws but is an attempt by him to vindicate himself and prove that the proposals that he put to the House from 28th February last to 3rd July are correct and to substantiate the case he made. That is why I say it is unreasonable and quite unjustified for the Government to send in here the present Minister for Local Government with these proposals. It is hard to understand why the Government, who are accepting collective responsibility with the Taoiseach at their head, have not seen fit to change the present Minister for Local Government and send in another Minister with these electoral reforms. In saying that, I am not making any personal attack on the Minister for Local Government but I am saying that a man who campaigned, as he campaigned, and who holds the beliefs which he apparently holds on our system of election could not be expected to be unbiased in his proposals. It would be asking too much from him.

It seems to me that he has insisted on coming in here with this measure in order to vindicate himself and in order to punish, in so far as he can, the people of this country for rejecting his proposals in the referendum. Recent events have demonstrated beyond doubt that the present Minister for Local Government is a bad judge; that his opinions on electoral reform cannot be accepted as being sound and that his views on constituencies and on the system of election which we have here are simply not sound and cannot be accepted as a good opinion. The fact that the referendum was rejected by approximately a quarter of a million votes is ample evidence that the advice given by the Minister for Local Government to this House and to the country was not sound.

I cannot understand the Government's attitude in entrusting the present Minister for Local Government with the duty of revising the constituencies. According to his way of thinking, he has taken on an impossible task. He has committed himself to the proposition that it is impossible to revise the constituencies in a reasonable way within the law as it stands, within the Constitution as confirmed by the people. As I said yesterday, he is committed, as a result of his attitude here, to reducing Article 16 of the Constitution to absurdity and that, in my respectful opinion, is what he has set out to do in the measure we are now discussing.

The Taoiseach has fallen down in his duty; he has not faced up to his responsibilities and obligations because I believe that the least that the country and the House are entitled to on this measure is a fresh and unprejudiced mind rather than the prejudiced mind of the Minister for Local Government —the committed mind and the known mind of the Minister for Local Government.

Perhaps the Minister for Local Government believes that it would be a blow to his prestige if he were to hand over his portfolio of Local Government to another Minister and it may well be that the Taoiseach, on that ground, has decided to stand over the Minister and authorise him to introduce this Bill. That is a point of view but it is a point of view with which I do not agree. However, if the Minister for Local Government was brave enough to accept this task and if the Taoiseach is foolish enough to entrust him with the introduction of this Bill, the House and the country are entitled to expect that the very least they would have done would be to have introduced into this Bill the elementary safeguard of a constituency commission.

I should like to point out to Deputy Fitzpatrick that the question of setting up a constituency commission is not relevant to this debate. The proposal to introduce such a commission was negatived yesterday by the Dáil and I would refer Deputy Fitzpatrick to Standing Order 46 which sets out that no Member shall raise a discussion on a question already decided during the preceding six months.

(Cavan): May I respectfully submit that the meaning of that Standing Order is that the same proposal in the form of a Bill shall not be introduced again. I am not doing that.

The Chair wishes to make it clear that the question of this commission is not relevant to the present debate.

(Cavan): I wish to say again, with considerable respect, that if the Chair were to pursue that rule it would mean that on the Committee Stage of this Bill it would not be in order to put down an amendment to include a commission.

(Cavan): I would respectfully disagree with the Chair on that. I say that on Second Reading it is quite in order for me or for any Member of this House to comment on the measure as it stands and to suggest improvements to it. That is what I am doing. Perhaps the situation which arises here today may never have arisen before and there may be a heavy onus on the Chair in creating a precedent, one which I know the Chair is well able to discharge but one which requires considerable thought.

I might point out to the Deputy that the Chair is not creating any precedent. Standing Order 46 is very plain. As I have said, it sets out that no Member shall reopen a discussion on a question already decided within the last six months.

Could the Chair answer me a question, as a matter of information? If the Minister for Local Government puts an amendment on Committee Stage suggesting that a commission sit to reform the constituencies in view of the fact that these constituencies do not seem to be desirable or acceptable to the House, will the Chair accept that amendment or not?

The Chair could not accede to the Deputy's proposition unless the Dáil as a whole instructed him to do so.

I am not suggesting that. I am putting a hypothetical question. In the event of the Minister for Local Government bringing in an amendment on the Committee Stage that a commission should sit, would the Chair rule the Minister out of order?

On this point, may I point out that the Bill is entitled "An Act to fix the number of members of Dáil Éireann and to revise their constituencies and to amend the law relating to the election of such members".

Would the Chair be kind enough to give an answer to my question? I am considerably confused.

The Chair cannot allow hypothetical questions. If and when the matter comes before the House, we will rule on it.

This is of considerable importance. It seems to me that the question I have put is a very simple one.

I have already made the position clear to the Deputy. The Chair could not accede to that request unless the House specially instructed the Chair to agree to it.

Surely that begs the question? If anybody puts down an amendment here it is not necessary for the entire House to agree to it before that amendment is put. That, in effect, is what the Chair has said now. I am even more confused than I was before.

I thought I made it very clear to the Deputy that Standing Order 46 determines the position in regard to this matter and any similar matters: you cannot have a discussion on a matter that has been discussed and negatived by the House.

(Cavan): I accept the Chair's ruling, as I must, but it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to have a worthwhile discussion on this measure. As I understand it, it is the duty of the Members of the House to try to improve legislation going through the House, to point out the shortcomings in that legislation and to make suggestions for its improvement. I shall say what I want to say in another way, but I believe the House is being done a disservice if I am not to be permitted to suggest that machinery should be put into this Bill to advise the Minister for Local Government in what he is doing, and that is what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that the best way of doing that is to provide for a constituency commission. You are ruling, Sir, that it is not in order for me to proceed on those lines.

According to the Standing Order which I have just quoted.

(Cavan): I thought I had Standing Orders here; it is the Constitution I have instead. The Chair seems to have a certain discretion but only on the question of a personal explanation. However, I would submit, and I shall leave it at this, that I am not opening a discussion on something that has been decided and negatived. I am suggesting to the Minister that he should take up this matter and, for his own protection and his own advice, provide for a commission in this Bill.

The opening words of the Minister's speech are: "The purpose of this Bill is to revise the Dáil constituencies in the light of the changes in the distribution of the population recorded in the 1966 Census returns." If the purpose of the Bill is to revise the Dáil constituencies in the light of changes, surely passing references to the commission, without going into the full matter of setting up the commission, are relevant to the issue in front of us? Even if the Dáil took a decision on not doing that yesterday, surely it is an important point to make in a Parliamentary way on this Bill?

As the Deputy has rightly pointed out, the purpose of this Bill is to revise the Dáil constituencies, but there is no reference to the revision of these constituencies being handed over to any commission

(South Tipperary): Surely the method of revision is pertinent to the discussion?

Going back to Standing Order 46, I have to rule out any reference to the establishment of a commission to revise the constituencies.

The Bill itself is to revise the constituencies.

(Cavan): I take it the Chair is ruling out a discussion on the setting up of a statutory commission as envisaged in the Private Members' Bill which was discussed yesterday evening, and nothing else?

Surely there is a difference between recommending the setting up of a commission, against which the House decided yesterday, and saying: "I think the views or the opinion of a commission like that would be very valuable?" Surely that is something that could, with great relevance, be introduced into the discussion of the Bill without actually saying: "I here and now propose that such a commission be set up?" I should like the Chair just to consider that viewpoint.

I again point out to Deputy Dockrell that the House has already negatived the proposal to set up a constituency commission, and in the light of Standing Order 46 the Chair cannot allow a further discussion on that matter.

(Cavan): I bow to the Chair's ruling, but that ruling will render impossible any worthwhile discussion on this Bill. When this matter was discussed in the House yesterday evening, the Minister and, indeed, Deputy Booth tried to block any discussion on the commission. Apparently it is now going to be stifled altogether. I was making the case that I thought the Minister for Local Government was completely unsuited for the task which he has taken on himself, that is, the task of revising the constituencies.

We are not discussing a change of Ministers. We are discussing this Bill before the House.

(Cavan): We are discussing the suitability of the Minister——

We are discussing the principles of the Bill, not a change of Ministers.

(Cavan): We can discuss the type of Minister and we can say that because of his known committed views on this subject he should not have been entrusted with the introduction of this Bill. One would have thought he would have sought some impartial advice, that he would have ensured that what he was doing not only was fair but would be seen to be fair. One would have thought that a man who suffered such a rebuff at the hands of the electorate as recently as the 16th October of this year would have taken great precautions to ensure that his proposals to the House were equitable, bona fide and in the interests of the proper representation of the people rather than of the consolidation of his Party in office. With that end in view, I consider that he might have sought the opportunity of establishing an informal committee of Dáil Éireann consisting of Members of both sides of the House and be guided by them. Did he do that? He did not. As a matter of fact, he sought, and apparently accepted, the views of one side of the House and one side of the House only — those of his own Party.

This Bill we are dealing with now was introduced into this House on 23rd October of this year. On that day I think I asked the Taoiseach or the Minister for Local Government when the Bill was expected to be circulated. I was told then it would be circulated on 6th November and that we would have the Second Stage debate on 12th November. The 6th November came and there was no Bill. We know that on that day Deputy Corish, the Leader of the Labour Party, asked the Minister for Local Government the date on which the Bill was promised to be circulated or when it would be circulated. In a very offhand and uninformative way the Minister said: "Next week some time, I hope" whereupon the Taoiseach intervened to say that the Bill would be circulated on the 12th of this month, the date on which the Second Reading debate was supposed to take place. We also know that it only got into the post in pursuance of the Taoiseach's promise some time about two O'clock on the morning of the 12th of this month.

I want to ask the Minister for Local Government what was going on in the meantime and who was he consulting in the meantime. The fact of the matter is that he was consulting every Fianna Fáil TD, one by one, in a systematic manner. He was asking each TD how this change and how the other change would suit him. I believe the Minister made himself available to those Fianna Fáil TDs, that they were consulted and asked to advise on how best to arrange constituencies to suit themselves. That is not the end of them. One afternoon I saw in the restaurant of this House the entire Fianna Fáil group of county councillors from one county in Ireland, every one of them, and I did not know what was going on because I happen to know the county. Then I thought and thought again and it struck me that every one of those Fianna Fáil county councillors was brought up because it happens to be the only county in Ireland in which there is not a Fianna Fáil TD, County Leitrim.

This is the sort of thing that delayed the publication of this Bill from the 6th to the 12th November. This is the sort of impartial consultation the Minister was having. The Minister would have been much better advised to accept the commission he rejected yesterday than to avail of this sort of consultation and this sort of advice. The electoral laws of this country, as enshrined in the Constitution, were not put into it to keep any one particular political Party in office or to try to do so because it is trying the Minister will be. The electoral provisions of the Constitution are supposed to serve all the people of this country and to serve all the Parties in this House. Is it not, therefore, manifestly unjust, unfair and unreasonable that in an atmosphere such as prevails in this country at the present time, following the long controversial and acrimonious debate on electoral reform in this House from 28th February to 3rd July and in the country virtually from 3rd July to 16th October, that the constituencies should be revised by the chief operator in that debate and in that controversy, the Minister for Local Government, aided and abetted by each and every Oireachtas Member of his own Party? Where the constituency does not happen to have at that time either a Member of the Dáil or a Member of the Seanad the entire Fianna Fáil county council bloc is brought up here to advise the Minister for Local Government.

That offends seriously against the Irishman's sense of fair play and against the Irishman's sense of decency. Mind you, that is why the Minister and his Party took such a hammering at the polls on the 16th October. It was because the Irish people believe in fair play and because the Irish people did not trust the Minister for Local Government and the Government in their attempt to gerrymander and rig the constituencies. That is the principal reason the Minister took such a hammering. It was because the people regarded it as an insult to their sense of fair play, because the Irish people believe that in electoral reform justice should be done and justice should be seen to be done. That is why I suggest the Minister for Local Government should have sought and even welcomed some form of impartial advice on the drawing up of those constituencies. Whether that advice was to come from a statutory committee, which I am not permitted to recommend or even to discuss, or whether it should come from an informal but fairminded all-Party committee of this House, is immaterial to my argument.

The only conclusion I can draw from the refusal of the Minister for Local Government to accept a commission or to seek the advice of all Parties in this House and to insist on doing the job himself, with the assistance of his own henchmen, is that he is not interested in arranging constituencies in a fair manner but rather is he interested in arranging them or rigging them in a manner which he considers best calculated to give an advantage to the Fianna Fáil Party. It would not be possible for me to make these allegations or to make this type of speech if the Minister had sought the advice of an all-Party commission of this House. If there is any sort of a measure which goes through this House and which affects every Party and every individual Member of the House in a particular way, it is the revision of constituencies. Surely, Sir, this is something which should be raised above politics and above Party politics and above Party advantage? Surely it is something which should be treated in a bona fide and a fair manner?

It is simply revolting to have the sort of talk going on here that has gone on since 16th October, 1968—back-stairs and back-room discussions between the Minister and his own Party, with other Parties and other Members being ignored; maps being scrutinised, considered, studied and altered by the Minister and the Members of his own Party, without these maps being made available to anybody else until the job has been done, until the Bill has been introduced, until the Minister has committed himself. I say that that is not good enough.

The result, of course, is gerrymandering. The result is a Bill—I shall deal later on with the way in which it is gerrymandered—that is introduced and that is calculated deliberately to gerrymander the constituencies in regard to areas and numbers in a way that it is believed—but it will not work—will suit the Minister and his Party. As I said last night, the Fine Gael Party is not the only Party which believes that gerrymandering can take place and does take place but should be avoided and prevented.

Before the referendum, the Taoiseach warned the electorate that, unless they took steps to prevent it, gerrymandering could take place. Let me quote what he said in this expensive document entitled "Referendum —The Reasons Why":

What is proposed is that new constituencies will be drawn up by an independent commission presided over by a judge so that gerrymandering will be impossible.

The Taoiseach anticipated gerrymandering. The Taoiseach saw the danger of gerrymandering. He saw that only some form of independent body which operated in the light of day, and before the public rather than behind closed doors, could prevent gerrymandering.

Now, let us consider for a moment the meaning of the word "gerrymandering". It is a word that we hear bandied about very often. Maybe not many people go to the bother of finding out what it means or how it came into existence. Well, the word "gerrymander" derives its name from the Governor of the State of Massachusetts in the United States of America whose name was "Gerry" and who devised the scheme. Here is the meaning of the word according to the Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, New Edition, Volume II:

To arrange the political divisions of a State so that, in an election, one Party may obtain an advantage over its opponent even though the latter may possess a majority of votes in the State.

That is what the Taoiseach was afraid of.

I think that this Bill, both in regard to the geographical situation of constituencies and in regard to the number of Deputies provided for in one part of the country as against another, has outdone the proposal of Governor Gerry of the State of Massachusetts in the United States of America. As a matter of fact, this Bill could be described as "Bolandering". I think it will probably go down in history as the attempt to "Bolander" the constituencies of this country. However, I am convinced that the Irish people, just as they violently and in the most decisive manner reacted against the other attempt on 16th October, 1968, to change the electoral system, will react at the next general election here and that whether the Minister amends these proposals or whether he does not amend them, he and his Party will be swept out of power because the Irish people are now in the mood to do that.

On 16th October, 1968, the Irish people demonstrated that they were in no mood whatever to tolerate the attempt then made by the Minister for Local Government to change the electoral system for his own benefit. I think he will find that, just as he completely misjudged the people then, just as he was as far out as a lighthouse in his summing-up of the views of the Irish people on 16th October, 1968, he is very far out when he comes to the next general election.

This Bill is really a disgraceful effort by the Minister for Local Government to say to the people of this country, in effect: "I told you so. You would not take my advice. I told you what would happen. Now you are going to get it." That is why I believe the Minister for Local Government is a very foolish man indeed. He has done no service either to himself or to his Party in introducing this Bill in its present form. He has set out to undo the decision of the people.

The people decided that they wanted proportional representation. They decided twice, in 1959 and again this year when they were asked if they wanted to abolish proportional representation. They were so indignant at being asked the question again that they told the Minister in no uncertain manner that they wanted to continue the electoral laws as contained in Article 16 of the Constitution. They said: "We want you and your Government as long as you are there to go and operate them." One would have thought that the Minister would have accepted that advice and would have said: "Well, the people are supreme. I have given them every opportunity to change the system. They do not want to change the system and it is now my business to accept their decision and carry out their orders." However, instead of that the Minister has used every possible device to undo the decision of the people.

We know that proportional representation works best in larger constituencies, in four- and five-seat constituencies. The Minister in his attempt to get advantage for himself and his Party created a great number of three-seat constituencies where he thought it would suit him, where he thought he had up to 50 per cent of the votes in the constituency. Remember that I say "where he thought" because as the Minister will get to know, what was the case in relation to Government support 12 months ago, or in 1965, is not necessarily the case now. Where he thought he had up to 50 per cent of the votes in constituencies in the west of Ireland he created three-seat constituencies all over the place. He knows that with something in the neighbourhood of 50 per cent of the votes in those areas he would get two out of three seats.

Well, the Minister may think that it is good politics but is it fair play? He may think it is good politics to abolish four-and five-seat constituencies where they do not suit him and substitute three-member constituencies where he would get two out of three seats. I ask the Minister again whether he thinks it is fair or if he thinks it is what the people want. It would be bad enough if he were to continue that all over the country. He could put up the case for it and say that he believed that three-member constituencies gave you a more decisive result but, of course, he is not consistent because when he comes to places where he thinks the barometer would seem to indicate that his popularity is falling, in or around the city of Dublin, there is a different argument. The argument about decisive results holds good when you are in the west of Ireland but it ceases to hold water when you come to Dublin. He proceeds to scrap completely three- and five-seat constituencies and to substitute eight four-member constituencies. Of course, he knows that with well below 50 per cent of the votes he can hold two out of four of these seats. If he gets that vote he can hold two of these seats in Dublin.

Again, I say that that may appear to him to be slick business, to be good politics but is it fair play? Is it accepting the decision of the people in the referendum? In 1947 after the revision of the constituencies by Fianna Fáil there were no four-seat constituencies in Dublin; after the 1961 revision there were two four-seat constituencies and under the Bill which we are discussing the Minister proposes eight four-seat constituencies. He could not have any more even if he tried because that is the very maximum. We go from no four-seat constituencies in 1947 to two in 1961 and to eight in 1968 because the Minister knows that his vote is dropping and dropping dangerously and with much less than 50 per cent of of the votes he can get 50 per cent of the seats in or around the city of Dublin.

As I said, there is a totally different argument and a different approach when you go to the west. The Minister still thinks that the people are gullible and with three-seat constituencies that he can get two out of three seats. I do not think it will work. I think the people will be disgusted, that they will see through it and that they will react in the same violent manner to this proposal as they reacted to the proposals on 16th October. It is my business, however, to point out to the people what is being attempted and what the Minister has in mind. In both the 1947 and the 1959 revisions 60 per cent of the constituencies outside Dublin were four- and five-seaters, now that percentage has been reduced to something around 30 per cent and you have two-thirds of the constituencies outside Dublin three-seaters.

There was no evidence from the voting in the referendum that the people thought that the constituencies were too big. That case was made by the Minister and by his Party to the best of their ability all over the country, that the constituencies were unwieldy and would have to become bigger. I think the Minister told the people that there would be 11- and 12-member constituencies if they did not accept the electoral reform proposals last October. He certainly said that there would be five-and six-seater constituencies and referred to one in which there would be 11 seats. However, that did not terrify the people. As a matter of fact, if the result of the referendum is to be accepted by the Minister the people want bigger constituencies instead of smaller ones, if they paid any attention at all to what the Minister and his colleagues said. Yet we have these proposals to gerrymander or "Bolander" the constituencies by creating four-member constituencies where it suits him and three-member constituencies where he also thinks it suits him. As I said, I think the people will not fall for that. They will deal with it in their own wise way and win again just as they won before.

If there was one principle that the Minister seemed to regard as sacred throughout the long drawn-out debate on the Third and Fourth Amendments here in this House and subsequently throughout the country it was the sanctity of county boundaries. We were told by the Minister that county boundaries would have to be preserved at all costs and that we, on this side of the House, were doing violence to county boundaries and he was the champion of county boundaries. That is why I say now that this Bill is an "I-told-you-so" act. The Minister was, of course, committed to butchering county boundaries. He had told the people that. He had told the House that. He had broadcast that on every medium of communication in the country. He was committed to it and, in drafting this measure, he set out to out-do himself.

He has divided up nine counties into 17 areas, quite unnecessarily chucking parts of them into other counties. That is nowhere more apparent than in the west of Ireland. At all costs Donegal had to be preserved as two three-seaters. Donegal was one of the three counties in the Republic where the Minister saved his face in the referendum by the merest of whiskers. The two constituencies in Donegal brought in a miserable surplus in favour of the Minister's proposal but, miserable as the surplus was, it was followed only by Clare and part of Galway. Donegal had to be preserved at all costs, not in the interests of Donegal, mark you, but in the interests of the Fianna Fáil Party; and Leitrim, in pursuance of the terrible warning by the Taoiseach in Drumshanbo and the Minister here in this House, had to be driven off the political map, with the consent of every Fianna Fáil member of the Leitrim County Council. Let it be known that they were up here in this House, sitting in the Gallery presiding at the wake of Leitrim, presiding at the obliteration of Leitrim from the political map in order to preserve the two constituencies in Donegal for the Minister for Local Government and his Party. Could anything be more disgraceful? The worst feature of it is the fact that this was acquiesced in by every Fianna Fáil member of Leitrim County Council, including the newly nominated Senator, councillor, now Senator, Michael Gunn.

People who are not Members of the House should not be referred to in the House since they have no opportunity of replying.

(Cavan): I did not drag these people in here; it was the Minister for Local Government who dragged them in here.

We have only the Deputy's word for it.

(Cavan): The Minister can deny it, if he wishes. The Minister for Local Government dragged them in here and involved them in this butchery. I may not be strictly in order in referring to them, but I at least have the excuse that I did not drag them into it. It was the Minister for Local Government who involved them in this sordid, disgusting business. So much for Leitrim.

Nowhere is this butchery more apparent than in the west of Ireland. Donegal had to be saved because it stood by the Minister in the referendum. Galway had to be saved, but Galway could not be relied on entirely because only West Galway came up trumps, with a majority of 62, I think, in the referendum. East Galway could not be relied upon and so the Minister had to go into Clare to get an injection of Fianna Fáil blood, as he thought, to make East Galway safe. These two examples will not deceive anybody. These counties stood by the referendum proposals—Donegal, West Galway and Clare. They had to be preserved in different ways to the best advantage of the Minister. Leitrim was destroyed to preserve two constituencies in Donegal. A bit of Clare was taken in to preserve three three-seaters in Galway. The question then was how would they get another seat in Clare in which they had two out of four, notwithstanding the strength at any one time of their candidates in that constituency. The solution: reduce it to three in the hope that they will get two out of three. I will leave it to any fairminded and impartial thinker to say whether that is electoral reform. Is that fair revision? Is it gerrymandering or "Bolandering", in the best tradition of Senator Gerry of Massachusetts or of the Minister for Local Government? I will leave that to the House and the people to discern.

I am dealing only with those things that stick out like a sore thumb. Other speakers will go into more detail, but the most interesting little operation of all is the transfer of a piece of Westmeath in and around Athlone into Roscommon. Again, this is quite unnecessary unless it is to try to injure a Fine Gael TD and consolidate the Minister for Education, and to insulate him against some of the dangerous statements he makes on national policy. That is the sort of thing that has been happening.

There were all sorts of threats. The campaign on the referendum in Cavan was perfectly gentlemanly even if it was not too honest. The Taoiseach did us the honour of opening the Fianna Fáil campaign in the courthouse, and he said what the boys had been saying, that Monaghan and Cavan would be linked together because it would suit Deputy Tom Fitzpatrick. I think the Taoiseach got into a bit of trouble for referring to me in Cavan as Deputy Tom Fitzpatrick. They thought it was a little bit familiar. Although it appeared that way in the national papers it was a little more formal in the local papers.

However, the Taoiseach warned that Monaghan and Cavan would be linked together and that campaign was continued until the director of elections for the Minister's Party came from Cootehill to Cavan town and pulled up his motor car within 50 yards or so of the principal polling station on the day of the referendum and blared: "Do not be driven into Monaghan." That was the whole campaign from the Taoiseach down, but Monaghan and Cavan are still intact as counties. I have nothing very serious to say about the shape of my constituency. I told the Minister during the campaign that he could do what he liked about it and that I would still be able to deal with him and it.

They decided to have a proper "go" at Meath and they put about 5,500 people from Meath into Cavan. The Minister talked about the sanctity of the county boundaries but he put 5,500 people from Meath into Cavan and he put another 5,000, including Deputy Denis Farrelly, into Monaghan. Instead of making one cut or one division in Meath he divided it between Monaghan and Cavan. He put a bit of Louth into Monaghan and a bit of Meath into Monaghan and he put a hunk of Leitrim into Meath. I cannot call that anything but gross hypocrisy. I do not think Deputy Cunningham was here when I was saying a few words about Donegal, the only county which had a majority in support of the referendum proposals and which had to be preserved at all costs.

(Cavan): The county boundaries mean little or nothing when it comes to the interests of the Fianna Fáil Party, and the Minister put 17 pieces of nine counties into other counties. Something in the neighbourhood of 100,000 people were transferred from their native counties into other counties, and to a large extent unnecessarily, because Senator Garret FitzGerald, without the assistance of the individual members of the Fine Gael Party as the Minister had the assistance of the Fianna Fáil Party, and without the assistance of the Civil Service, was able to revise the constituencies in accordance with the Minister's interpretation of the Constitution by changing only six pieces of six counties and moving 40,000 people.

He wanted to put part of Donegal into Sligo and Leitrim.

(Cavan): That was only one way.

In other words, he was breaking up three counties.

(Cavan): The net result would have been six counties interfered with—during the debate on the referendum the Minister would have said six counties raped.

Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim were three for a start.

(Cavan): Senator FitzGerald's proposal was only one of the many ways this could have been done without violating the county boundaries on a wholesale scale.

The Deputy has not suggested any way.

(Cavan): I have suggested one way. Cavan and Meath. I had a bit of trouble at the beginning of my remarks. It took me about half an hour to get going because Deputy MacEntee and others thought I should discuss practically nothing. However, Deputy Cunningham will have ample opportunity to tell us what he thinks.

If I did not like it I would have made suggestions.

(Cavan): He can say he welcomes it in the best tradition of Government supporters.

(Cavan): He should not interrupt me. He can say he welcomes the Minister's proposals.

Here and now I stake my claim to that.

(Cavan): Deputy Cunningham is usually a perfect gentleman but for some reason or other he seems to think he must make a noise about Donegal. I wish he would not make it at me. I have told him before that his colleagues drive around in Mercedes cars and hoot their horns. He always picks on me and I do not know why.

(Cavan): Maybe that is why he wants to try to draw attention to himself. People will see how bogus were the sentiments about the county boundaries, and they will also see the Minister's gaffe in approving three-seat constituencies in one part of the country and four-seat constituencies in another.

What would the Deputy do in Cavan? That is a fair question?

(Cavan): I am as happy as Larry in Cavan.

The Deputy agrees with the Minister then?

(Cavan): I do not think anything could be done with Cavan that would make me unhappy.

Then the Deputy agrees with the Minister.

(Cavan): I am convinced that after the next election we will have two out of three seats in Cavan and that will be a proud day for me.

There are many people who will have enough to say about that.

(Cavan): You cannot worry me about Cavan. Monaghan was not put into Cavan. It was stated by some people that they did not want to create a Unionist quota. I would have forgotten that but for Deputy Cunningham. That was the excuse given for not putting Monaghan into Cavan. They did not want to create a Protestant quota. The real thing was that if they did put Monaghan and Cavan in they would be trooping back in here with two out of three, as round as a hoop. I want to tell the Minister for Local Government that I believe he made a mistake because if he left Cavan and Monaghan together he would have been coming back with two out of five. I should like to have a bet with somebody he will come back with two out of six and his second state will be worse than his first.

He is not gerrymandering then?

(Cavan): That is the worst of Deputies coming in here for bits of speeches and not hearing all of them. I have been saying these few little words on the basis that the Minister is doing his damnedest to gerrymander but it will not work because the people will revolt against it. That is what Deputy Cunningham did not hear. I would have forgotten all about the Unionist quota in Monaghan and Cavan if were not for Deputy Cunningham.

To get back now to Constitutional issues, I must say I am very glad that the Minister for Local Government in his brief, for the first time since this marathon debate began in the spring of this year, made reference to the existence of the decision of the Supreme Court on the 1961 Electoral (Amendment) Bill. I have been trying for months past both in the House and outside it to get the Minister to see the importance of that decision, and to get him to accept that the decision of the Chief Justice, Mr. Conor Maguire, as quoted in the Minister's brief, is the law on constituency revision rather than the decision of Mr. Justice Budd. Mr. Justice Budd held that the 17 per cent tolerance as it was called was too much. The Government did not appeal against that. There was another Bill introduced when Mr. Budd decided that the tolerance was too much. That is all he decided. This Government did not appeal to the Supreme Court against that decision. They introduced another Bill with this 1,000 either way tolerance—five per cent—and they went back to the Supreme Court with that as they very wisely should and the Supreme Court of five judges, presided over by the Chief Justice, delivered their judgment on that measure. I am very glad that the Minister for Local Government has put it on record in toto in his speech. Members of this Party and of the Opposition generally are very often accused of misquoting. I have quoted this several times and I was delighted this morning when the Minister began at the very same sentence of the Chief Justice's judgment as I have begun it time and time again. If I may be permitted I will quote this judgment because in my opinion it is the law. There are all sorts of scaremongering rumours going around the country that if the Minister for Local Government were to bring in a Bill here which went slightly above the five per cent tolerance of Mr. Justice Budd's judgment it could be held to be unconstitutional. If in the interests of fair play the Minister wanted to have a six, seven, or eight per cent tolerance or even a 10 per cent tolerance why could he not, if it was fair, introduce a Bill on that basis and refer it to the Supreme Court the next day? What is wrong with that? The Minister would at one time have said he would be making money for the Fine Gael lawyers but there are as many lawyers in the Minister's own Party now as there are in Fine Gael. What would be wrong with that operation?

The Chief Justice said:

The sub-clause recognises that exact parity in the ratio between members and the population of each constituency is unlikely to be obtained and is not required. The decision as to what is practicable is within the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas. It may reasonably take into consideration a variety of factors, such as the desirability so far as possible to adhere to well-known boundaries such as those of counties, townlands and electoral divisions. The existence of divisions created by such physical features as rivers, lakes and mountains may also have to be reckoned with. The problem of what is practicable is primarily one for the Oireachtas, whose members have a knowledge of the problems and difficulties to be solved which this Court cannot have. Its decision should not be reviewed by this Court unless there is a manifest infringement of the Article. This court cannot, as is suggested, lay down a figure above or below which a variation from what is called the national average is not permitted. This, of course, is not to say that a Court cannot be informed of the difficulties and may not pronounce on whether there has been such a serious divergence from uniformity as to violate the requirements of the Constitution.

To justify the Court in holding that the subsection has been infringed it must, however, be shown that the failure to maintain the ratio between the number of Members for each constituency and the population of each constituency involves such a divergence as to make it clear that the Oireachtas has not carried out the intention of the sub-clause.

In the opinion of the Court the divergencies shown in the Bill are within reasonable limits.

That, in my opinion, means that the five per cent tolerance contained in the Bill being dealt with by the Supreme Court was reasonable. It also means that any other reasonable tolerance would be acceptable to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would only interfere where the Oireachtas had manifestly, and presumably for ulterior and improper motives, set out to give an unfair tolerance. I believe that would be the law rather than the decision of Mr. Justice Budd. I have so argued since this debate began. I am glad even at this stage that the Minister has put it on the record of this House. I believe that a reasonable tolerance would be acceptable by the Supreme Court. As the law stands, the tolerance of one-sixth or approximately 17 per cent proposed in the Third Amendment would not be accepted. It was not accepted by Mr. Justice Budd. His decision was not appealed. That could be changed by the Supreme Court. Even as the law stands, we know five per cent would be accepted. Mr. Justice Budd would not accept 17 per cent. We know that something in between would be accepted. The Minister, if his intention was to find a reasonable solution in deference to the wishes of the people as expressed in the referendum, should have proceeded on that basis, trying a slightly different tolerance if that was necessary and then submitting it to the Supreme Court and then there could be no question about it.

I have dealt with this measure in a Second Reading way, I hope. I have done my best to demonstrate to the House and to the country that the measure should never have been introduced by the Minister for Local Government, that he is not fit to introduce it. I do not say "not fit" in an offensive way. I say he is not fit because of his known commitment to another system, not fit because he has said in this House and elsewhere that the system which he is now trying to work is unworkable. How could a man make a good job of something which he believed could not be done? That is the task which Deputy Boland has taken on here as Minister for Local Government. That is one of the reasons and the only honest reason, why it will fail.

This is not a serious or an honest effort to revise constituencies in a fair or in an honest way. It is the second attempt in 1968 to consolidate in power, by unfair electoral means, the Fianna Fáil Party. As I have said to Deputy Cunningham, I do not believe the Minister will succeed in his objectives. He has succeeded in gerrymandering but he will not succeed in attaining the objects of his gerrymandering because, as I have said, the people will react in the next general election just as they reacted in the referendum. They will give their answer to the Minister and to Fianna Fáil. They will demonstrate again that we are a fairminded people, that we believe in fair play, that we have no time for manipulation either of the Constitution or of the electoral law in a manner calculated, not to give fair representation, but to gerrymander and "Bolander" in order to confer unfair Party advantage on the Fianna Fáil Party.

I have enough faith in the Irish people to know that they will not fall for that. I have faith in the fairmindedness of the Irish people. It was one theme that I suggested in the very beginning of the referendum campaign. I was convinced in my own mind and I said it on many occasions that if you could get one message across to the people the proposals would take an unmeciful hammering and that simple message was, "It is not fair". It was not used as a theme in any publicity but I believe it got over to the people and that is the reason why the scheme rejected the Government's proposal and that is the reason why the scheme of the Minister, geographically and numerically, to "Bolander" the constituencies of this country will fail at the next election, whenever it comes.

There is no doubt that there was widespread astonishment and dismay throughout the country when, a few days after the outcome of the referendum, the Minister announced his intention of revising the constituencies by means of this electoral measure. The people felt that they had given the answer to this question in the referendum. "Gerrymander" was the word widely used in that campaign and the people gave back the answer by an overwhelming majority that they could not and would not entrust to this Minister the task of revising our constituencies. By rushing in hastily with this measure the Minister has flaunted the decision of the people in the referendum. The provisions in this Bill have been drawn up with such speed as gave rise in this House and in the country to the feeling that a general election must be imminent, so indecent was the haste, or, otherwise, that the proposals had already been drawn up in the knowledge and belief that the Government could not or would not win in the referendum issues.

It is pertinent to point out that the Minister, time and time again, warned us and warned the people that if they did not accept his proposals for the imposition of the Orange system of election here, the so-called straight vote, single-seat constituency and the gerrymander which went with it, the country, to use his own words, would be butchered. Many times he said that the country would be butchered. He also said that the country would be fragmented if his proposals were not accepted. True to form, true to his word, he has done just that. He has, of set purpose and deliberately, in a flagrant act of vindictiveness and revenge, butchered and carved up the constituencies in order to bring the greatest possible advantage to his own Party and do the greatest damage to the Opposition.

Anyone who doubts the veracity of these statements as to the modus operandi involved, which was designed to buttress the fading hopes of Fianna Fáil, need only look at the Government's proposals on the maps that have been produced where he will see the new constituencies outlined and the ingenious manner in which the Minister and his Party have carved up the west of Ireland, the city of Dublin, the city and county of Cork, Meath, Louth and, most of all, the annihilation of the County Leitrim. In the process, the County Leitrim was raped and ceases to exist for electoral purposes. This was a flagrant and despicable act of gerrymandering, the worst of its type ever to have happened south of the Border. The entire population of that county has been thrown into three different counties. The county ceases to exist as an entity. Some 11,000 men and women is Leitrim are now thrown in with Roscommon, 11,000 more with Sligo and approximately 8,000 with South-West Donegal, and thus ends the existence of Leitrim as we know it.

All this was done to buttress Fianna Fáil in respect of the falling off of population in the west of Ireland. In the overall situation there is little radical change in respect of the loss of seats. The numerical strength of this House is the same. The West lost three seats in the process. North Leinster, taking Cavan and Monaghan into account, lost a seat, whereas Dublin city and Dublin county both gained two seats.

It will be seen, therefore, that the actual change in representation is relatively small, yet constituency boundaries have been altered considerably and to a shocking extent. The lip service paid by the Minister to adhering to county boundaries has been ignored and violated flagrantly and whole counties have been fragmented, traditional county boundaries completely and utterly ignored. We wish to prove that this was quite unnecessary. The whole exercise was, as we anticipated, to extend the life of Fianna Fáil in this House. Having failed in the referendum, immediately the results were known and seeing the devastating manner in which he had been defeated by the people of Ireland, the Minister decided in a fit of pique and revenge to go to town on them in this way. This is his modus operandi, his last desperate effort to entrench his Party in power for a few more years.

The Irish people already have demonstrated that they detest unfairness and injustice. They detest anyone trying to slip it across them in an unfair way, and I believe they will react as violently to this proposal as they have reacted to the issues in the referendum, and the Minister and his party will find it will have the same disastrous result as they had on 16th October.

There is no semblance whatever of fair play and justice involved in these proposals. The matter of a commission to sit on electoral reforms, on the drawing up of county and constituency boundaries, is not adverted to in this measure. We are entitled to ask why. There is no intention of allowing anyone to have a say in drawing up these new county boundaries except the Minister and the Fianna Fáil Deputies. They have been consulted individually and collectively and they have given their blessing and approval to these proposals for revising the constituencies. It has been done in the selfish political attitude of seeking first to consolidate themselves as individual Deputies in their areas and secondly, if possible, to secure additional seats.

We have said there are other ways and means of dealing with the problem of revising the constituencies without adopting the ruthless manner of the Minister. It has been demonstrated by other people who have taken an interest in this matter, apart altogether from politicians, that the job could have been done by the transfer of a much lesser territory. It could have been done by affecting fewer counties and without involving so many thousands of people. In fact, it has been demonstrated that the revision could take place and conform to the regulations under our Constitution by affecting merely 1 per cent of our population, whereas the Minister's proposition involves the transfer of some 17 portions of territory, affecting nine counties and involving 100,000 people.

It is indiscriminate, injudicious, purely political. The Minister for Local Government in this Bill demonstrated to the whole country the effect of his threat that, if they did not accept his proposals to abolish PR and give him the single-seat and the so-called straight vote, he would set himself up in this House as the head butcher and hatchet man. He is the man who tried to put across the big lie in respect of the referendum issues. The big lie failed and we now have a proposal which is essentially his but has the backing and approval of the backroom boys of Fianna Fáil, and this is their proposal in order to save their own necks and try to hang on to power in this House.

There are so many aspects of this matter that one could speak on it for a very long time. I feel certain that all Deputies in this House, especially those on the Opposition side, are only too anxious to come in here and express their views on what has happened nationally, and particularly on what is happening in respect of their own constituencies. That which is most significant about this carving up process is the utter disregard which the Minister has displayed for the preservation of the county boundaries, which he has purported in many statements here to regard as virtually sacrosanct. This was made a big issue of in the referendum debate.

I have said that Leitrim has been wiped out altogether. Meath has been mutilated — divided into three or four parts. Kildare has been carved up and reduced to a three-seat constituency. Clare has lost a very large slice of its territory to County Galway. Roscommon and Cork have been affected and Louth has also been affected.

It is evident to us, Sir, that the area about which the Fianna Fáil Party are primarily concerned and worried is the west of Ireland. In order to maintain the number of seats in the west they have violated the boundaries of the western counties. They have done violence to Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon. There has been a breach of county boundaries here on a massive and unnecessary scale. Over one-half of the population of Clare and one-sixth of the population of Roscommon have been added to Galway in order to bolster up the population of the west which is traditionally pro-Government. This mutilation has taken place. By this despicable device the dying population of the west of Ireland in Galway, Mayo and Sligo has been increased, a population which was forced out under a Fianna Fáil Government. They have manipulated the population trend so as to increase 148,000 to 173,000, and they have raised the number of seats in that area from seven to nine.

It is important to note here that nine is a number which is divisible by three. Consequently, we get so many three-seat constituencies in this area. All the constituencies on the west coast from North Donegal to South-West Cork are now distinctively three-seat constituencies. The modus operandi here, of course, is well known. It has been demonstrated that, where the Government Party secure as little as 46 per cent, and in some instances as little as 43 per cent of the poll in a three-seat constituency, they can secure two out of the three seats. This is the reason for the departure from the traditionally larger constituency, the four- or five-seat constituency. By this manipulation and by the movement of the vote from one area to another they can bring off two seats out of three in each instance. Three-quarters of the constituencies in the country at large are now three-seat constituencies. This is a substantial increase on the position that has obtained. The existing situation is that we have nine five-seaters. Under this Bill those nine five-seaters will be reduced to two. In existing circumstances we have 12 four-seat constituencies. That figure is now being increased to 14, an increase of two. We have 17 three-seat constituencies and we know that in the new proposals that number is being increased out of all proportion to 26.

This is being done primarily along the west coast in the areas where Fianna Fáil support has been traditionally strong. The larger constituency with four and five seats has always been favoured, Sir, by adherents to proportional representation. The larger constituency always gave the fairest results and tended in particular to favour minority representation where you had, say, five seats. This is a movement away from true democracy, from proportional representation as it should be administered. This is deliberate flouting of the wishes of our people as expressed in the referendum and a gradual movement towards curtailment of the five-seat constituencies existing in Dublin where Fianna Fáil know their support is waning rapidly. Here, significantly enough, we have seen the reintroduction of four-seat constituencies because Deputy Boland knows that the best he can hope for in this city and its environs is to break even and get three seats out of the four— three seats would suit him, five seats would be out of the question. They purposely chose four seats as the best means of securing the greatest possible number of Deputies in the Dublin area. These four-seat constituencies in Dublin then are designed to neutralise in very large measure the losses expected by the Government Party in Dublin in the next general election.

The gerrymandering technique is written all over this proposal. I have tried to demonstrate it in a factual way. But there is something more sinister behind it altogether. Not only has this been done with a view to securing seats, not only has it regard to population at large and territory as such, but it has come down to personalities in large measure. We all, as politicians, know the art of gerrymander, the cutting away of an area from which a Deputy draws most of his support and the transfer of that part of his constituency to another area where he or his Party is traditionally weak. Boundaries, we know, can be drawn so as to eliminate competition between Parties, between personalities and between Deputies of the same Party and Ministers of the same Party. It is clear from these proposals that that has been done, especially in the west of Ireland and in Dublin.

These proposals, Sir, are so personal and so vindictively thought up that when certain constituencies were carved up it was done in the knowledge that the Deputy who represented that constituency was being deliberately set outside it. It has been drawn up in other areas in such a way as to try, if at all possible, to throw two Deputies of the same Party together in the same constituency. This has been deliberately done in Dublin. A straight line has been drawn through the constituency of one of my Labour colleagues quite obviously for the purpose of forcing him to go to one side or the other. In either case he would find himself fighting for his seat against one of his own colleagues in a three-seat constituency. We can well appreciate the unlikelihood of any one Party securing two seats out of three. It has been done in Mid-Cork and in North-East Cork. It has been done in Longford-Westmeath and in Cavan— setting out deliberately to put certain members of the Opposition in serious difficulty and in jeopardy.

The Minister was quite correct when he said the country would be butchered. He has certainly made a magnificent job of this proposal. It is done clearly to gain the maximum advancement for his Party, to bolster them up individually and collectively in every county and in every constituency and to do the greatest possible amount of harm in the most unfair, unjust, despicable and personal way to the Members of the Opposition. There is no question here of a commission, no question here of consultation with the Opposition, no question here of any semblance of fair play whatsoever. This is the prerogative of the Minister for Local Government and he is going to pay back the Irish people for not accepting his proposals in the referendum. Despite all our pleadings here for justice or fair play, I know we are wasting our sweetness on the desert air because we know that at the culmination of this debate the bells will ring, the vote will be held, the Fianna Fáil Deputies will march into that Lobby and they will vote "Tá" and by their existing numerical strength this Government plan for the revision of our constituencies will be put into operation. There is nothing that we in this House or in this country can do about it but the Irish people have already demonstrated that they are a commonsense people. Mere commonsense prevailed in the referendum. They are a people who hate untruth. injustice or unfairness of any kind and I believe that they will give back the answer to Fianna Fáil in all these constituencies.

Imagine, Sir, the sense of outrage which the people of Leitrim must feel at the rape of their county. Is there any one of them, however ardent a supporter of Fianna Fáil he may be, who could vote Fianna Fáil after this despicable trick? They have been wiped off the electoral map. They have been used as voting fodder to buttress the fading hopes of Fianna Fáil in South-East Donegal, in Sligo and in Roscommon. The Leitrim people are the fodder through whom Fianna Fáil votes are to be secured to maintain their stranglehold on the west of Ireland. I prophesy that the people of Leitrim from their sense of indignation and natural outrage will give back the answer to the Minister and give him another "No" in no uncertain terms.

What they have tried to do in Louth and Meath also cries out to high heaven for justice. In an obvious attempt to put one of my colleagues in trouble — a vain hope — and also a respected member of the Fine Gael Party, you butchered Meath and Louth at five different points and moved not one section of the population but five. It was quite unnecessary. It is quite obvious that the purpose here is to get down to personalities, to try to eliminate certain personalities in the Opposition. Again, it will fail.

I pity the people of Clare, the county of "The Chief" himself, ardent supporters of the Party. Their population is being reduced by nearly half, because of their loyalty to the Party, to bolster up portion of Galway. The people in these counties are very wise, intelligent and knowing. Some people thought it could be "put across" them on the 16th October, that the big lie would succeed. It did not succeed and it will not succeed now. The men that Fianna Fáil deliberately set out to get out of this House will, I prophesy, be put in with more support than ever by the people in their respective areas because it is traditional with our people through their ingrained love of fair play that they will not do the thing you want them to do and will not see a man so flagrantly unfairly treated. They will put back the men the Government want to put out.

This happened in my own constituency of South Tipperary in 1961. At that time constituencies were carved up with the approval of sitting members of Fianna Fáil and it was recounted to me afterwards by a Member of this House how the gerrymander was set about in South Tipperary and West Waterford. The specific intention was to make it impossible for the return of Deputy Kyne in County Waterford by reducing Waterford County from a four-seater to a three-seat constituency and to nail down my chances as an up-and-coming representative in South Tipperary, one who had contested the previous general election and was narrowly defeated for a seat in 1957. The dual purpose was to fill three out of four seats for Fianna Fáil, as they then were, in South Tipperary and fill two seats out of three for them in County Waterford.

What happened? Look at the returns. In the general election of 1961 you will see what happened in respect of the men that Fianna Fáil sought to put out in that gerrymander at that time. You will see that Deputy Kyne was returned at the head of the poll to represent County Waterford and I, a comparatively young man at the time, came into this House for the first time at the head of the poll in my constituency of South Tipperary. So, the Minister should consult some of the old diehards of his Party and he will find that, like himself, however arrogant and ruthless they may have been in their time, they found that you cannot do these things to the Irish people and get away with it. I prophesy that in every instance the men Fianna Fáil try to put out will be put in by the people, and that the Labour Party will grow in strength and influence until they can form a Government.

I have confidence in the people of my constituency to return me time and time again irrespective of the devices which the Minister or his Party may use against me and irrespective of the obstacles that will be put in the way. In every area where it is tried, gerrymandering will fail and inevitably in the natural evolution, Labour will make progress until they become the Government of this country.

I must refer to the position in Westmeath. I submit that the operation of detaching Athlone district from Westmeath is utterly unjustified since 59,000 people are affected who need not be so affected. In normal circumstances it is quite unnecessary to cede this portion of Westmeath. There are some 59,000 people affected in eight sections who need not be affected and it is contended that the whole process could be carried out with fairness and justice without affecting more than 20,000 people. That has been demonstrated not by one, but by a number of personalities in this country.

There has been three times as much disturbance as was actually necessary in order to achieve the aims of Fianna Fáil in Meath and Louth. My colleague, Deputy Tully, will have a lot to say about that at a later stage. It is contended that only 8,500 people will be affected so as to bring County Louth and County Meath up to the required standard laid down in the Constitution in respect of Members. Instead of that, there are six separate areas affected. Six areas have been butchered in Counties Louth and Meath affecting more than 22,000 people. A large portion of North Cork has been detached and is now being added to mid-Cork. This proposal, too, is quite unnecessary and is designed solely on a selfish political basis to try to weaken Fine Gael and Labour in these two constituencies.

Apart altogether from the actual revision of constituencies which I have referred to at some length this Bill in its Short Title states that it is "An Act to fix the number of members of Dáil Éireann and to revise their constituencies and to amend the law relating to the election of such members." I do not know, a Cheann Comhairle, if I am entitled to comment on that aspect of the Bill — the law relating to the election of such Members. The Chair, most probably, will be aware that amendments have been tabled for the Committee Stage in the names of my colleagues Deputies Dunne, Tully, Corish and myself and I am not certain as to whether I may, at this stage, advert to these changes which we desire except perhaps to comment briefly on them.

Members, of course, are entitled to refer to what is relevant to the Bill as well as what it contains at the moment.

Thank you, Sir. In this regard we desire that in conjunction with this Bill the law relating to the election of Members would also be considered in depth and in detail. We are concerned about many aspects of this matter; we are concerned about the right of people to vote, about the manner in which the register is compiled and about the secrecy of the ballot.

I must point out to the Deputy that those matters do not arise on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill. The election code does not come under discussion in this particular Bill.

Very good, Sir. I shall not go into that matter but there are aspects of the Bill to which I wish to advert in respect of the amendments which have now been submitted and of which the Chair may not as yet be aware. We want to ensure that the hardship accruing to people in respect of their right to vote is cleared up. It is evident to us that too many people who should be on the register find, on polling day, that their names do not appear thereon.

I cannot allow a discussion on the electoral code.

Am I not entitled to comment now on the amendments that we are tabling in respect of this Bill?

Not having seen the amendments, Deputy, I cannot give any decision.

One of the things that we want to ensure in this Bill and we have some support from the Minister in this regard, is that the rights of the people to claim a vote——

That is a matter for the electoral code and it does not arise on this Bill which deals with the revision of constituencies.

On behalf of the Labour Party I wish to say that we are violently opposed to the measures contained in this Bill. We would hope that we might avail of it to correct certain injustices which are prevalent in the electoral procedure at the present time. We would hope, too, to avail of this opportunity to bring to the notice of the House the desirability of ensuring the maximum vote on all occasions and of ensuring that people have the right to vote and that every possible precaution should be taken to ensure that their names appear on the register.

I am afraid the Deputy must find a more relevant subject to discuss. As I have said, we are only concerned at the moment with the revision of constituencies.

Very good, Sir. I have said as much as I wish to say on the Bill. My colleagues and indeed all Opposition Members are naturally waiting an opportunity to ventilate their views on the Bill. A certain amount of deep anxiety has been caused in the country among our people by the fact that, irrespective of their will so clearly demonstrated in the recent referendum, anyone, any Minister or indeed the Government, can still continue to flaunt their wishes and to disregard their views by doing the very thing they deliberately set out to vote against. The matter of conceding to this Minister in particular the right to gerrymander or to interfere in any way with our constituencies— and I do not wish to be disrespectful in any way—has caused great concern.

The Minister by his own actions in this House and outside it has won for himself the reputation of being a man of arrogance. He demonstrated during his leadership of the campaign here for the abolition of PR that he was a man who lusted after political power and who would stop at nothing to secure it. He has demonstrated his intentions once again in this Electoral Bill. It contains nothing just or fair or right and, therefore, it is condemned by the Labour Party. In the next general election, by which time it will be implemented, it will be condemned by the mass of the Irish people and the very men whom this Minister and his Party are seeking to put out of this House will come back in greater numbers than ever before.

It is assumed one accepts the necessity for the introduction of this Electoral Bill to revise the constituencies in order to conform to the requirements of the Constitution. I do not envy the Minister for Local Government his job, nor do I expect the Members of the Opposition or, indeed, any Member of the House to be entirely satisfied with what he will do. Deputies in this House have a natural regard for their own wellbeing, and this always appears to be their first consideration.

The Constitutional requirements are clearly set down. One of the requirements is that there shall not be less than three seats per constituency, and you can have your pick after that as to what size your constituency can be. In some people's minds it is largely a matter of opinion as to what is convenient, but the Minister has to make his recommendations and introduce legislation. The Minister had a great opportunity of knowing the wishes of the people and their regard for multi-seat constituencies, county boundaries and natural geographical barriers. By and large, it can be said that none of those things greatly worried the people at all, and they decided to retain proportional representation. But PR is a difficult thing to understand in electing a Government. I believe you could have a constituency of 144 Deputies, but this would be rather cumbersome with probably 300 names on a ballot paper. Again you could have a constituency for each of the four provinces but this would also mean a lot of names on the ballot paper. You could have constituencies with lesser numbers, but the minimum is three for each constituency.

On the 9th October this year, just about a week before the referendum, Deputy P.A. O'Donnell was in Sligo debating the issues involved in the referendum. He said it was his considered opinion that the wishes of the people could be met and fairly met by three-seat constituencies. He felt that four-seaters would not be acceptable. In considering this matter the Minister naturally has borne all these things in mind as to what would be reasonable, workable and administratively feasible. I know he did not expect, nor do I expect, Members of the Opposition to say they are happy. However, it is nice to hear Deputy Fitzpatrick saying he is happy with Cavan as a three-seater and to hear Deputy Treacy, as a spokesman for the Labour Party, saying he was happy, but they go on to say that nearly everybody else is unhappy.

I know the west of Ireland reasonably well, and the creation of ten three-seat constituencies strikes me as being fair and reasonable. There has been no more breaching of boundaries than need have been adopted and the least of the evils has been accepted. In the 1966 Census Donegal had a population of 108,000, but this certainly does not give it sufficient population for six Deputies, and there are too many for five. Something had to be done with part of the population there. It was the same with Sligo, with a population of 51,000, which is not sufficient for three seats but too many for anything else to be done with it, three being the minimum.

Leitrim, beside it, has a population of 30,500. It is true you could put Sligo and Leitrim together and come up with four seats for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency, but then what could we do with this little bit in Donegal where there is a surplus population of 12,000 or 13,000? Under the ruling of Mr. Justice Budd something has to be done for these people; they cannot be left without representation. This is a most difficult problem; we have to start thinking whether to make a five-seat or a four-seat constituency or what to do with it. You could take a part of Sligo and a part of Leitrim, add them to Donegal and make two three-seaters out of them. What have you left then? Taking a bit of Roscommon, we have Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim in the one constituency, and Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon. Alternatively, we could consider the possibility of Roscommon and Leitrim being combined and Sligo being added to Mayo.

Mayo has a population of 115,000 or 116,000 and why not preserve it if we can? We can reasonably accommodate six Deputies there, and it has two constituencies. Now, there are as many approaches to this problem as opinions. Somebody had to make a decision and the Minister has done so.

In Sligo-Leitrim we did not have sufficient population for four Deputies and consequently we were reduced to three. It is regrettable in some cases that Leitrim appears to have been butchered but its geographical location and, indeed, the desire of the Minister to leave as many counties intact as possible left Leitrim in a fairly bad position. Leitrim with a population of 30,000 in order to make it a constituency would have to have 26,000 to 30,000 more added to it. This population would have to come from Sligo, Donegal or possibly from Cavan. Mountain and other barriers which intervene would make this unworkable.

Now we come to the matter of the creation of three-seat constituencies. Arguments are advanced that Clare has been butchered and also that Galway has been butchered or, if you like, has been kept intact by the creation of a three-seat constituency. Galway is intact as two constituencies. There are two three-seat constituencies. Clare is intact as two constituencies, one a three-seat constituency. There are surplus areas in both counties and about the only way you can deal with that is to make those areas into another three-seat constituency. Therefore, we have this other constituency comprised of part of Clare and part of Galway.

In Sligo we have been part of the Leitrim constituency for many years but with the decline in population boundaries are changing. They have to be changed this year but I can see in another four or five years time there will have to be a revision again in many constituencies. The tragedy, as I see it, is the loss of three seats in the west of Ireland and a gain of four seats in the city of Dublin. This is the real tragedy. The Constitution is there to ensure that this form of representation is maintained.

Deputy Fitzpatrick spoke about the tolerance of five per cent on which Mr. Justice Budd ruled some time ago. I do not know to what the Deputy was referring when he spoke about this or whether he meant that in the west of Ireland we could have a Deputy for 18,000 rather than 19,000 or 20,000. Some authorities say that five per cent is reasonable and other authorities say that 17 per cent is too much. The Deputy thought that 10 per cent as an in-between figure would be reasonable.

There is always an argument about what is reasonable. I want to say this much. Where there is a large area of territory heavily populated, and the tolerance reasonable and fair, that area, having regard to its size, would not be too wide of the margin even at 17 per cent, 18 per cent or 20 per cent. However, that decision was put to the people and they rejected it out of hand. This position will keep recurring over the years and we will get nobody who is ever prepared to agree on it. After every election you have the Deputy who lost his seat blaming the changing of constituencies for that loss, irrespective of how they are drawn.

I heard Deputy Treacy say that Deputy Kyne came in here in the teeth of a deliberate attempt to exclude him. It is nice to hear of somebody who came in, as Deputy Kyne did, where there was some kind of deliberate attempt to exclude him because he probably is the type of candidate who got the support of his constituents. Any Deputy standing for Dáil Éireann is prepared to accept the judgement of the people. Frankly, I do not know, or never knew, how you know what area is particularly good or what area is particularly bad. I am not a wizard in this particular field but apparently there are people who profess to know what is in the mind of the voter or how he will vote. I have never been able to employ the great knowledge they seem to possess so that in relation to any townland or any street in a town or area in a city you can draw the line this way or that and improve or disimprove your vote. I have never been able to figure that out, especially in a multi-seat constituency embracing a wide area.

I expect it is reasonable for a man in his own area who has the regard of his people to feel that he would get a large personal vote. This will always be the case irrespective of what political Party the person belongs to but how you can divide areas to reduce the opportunity of anybody getting in is something I cannot see. If a Deputy is a Member of this House and goes before the people he will be returned if the people want him.

It is true that there must be changes under our electoral system. Under the Constitution there are bound to be changes. You cannot have it otherwise. I know it is a disappointment to a Member of this House who sees he has lost an area he may have looked after fairly well and finds that 10,000 or 15,000 of the population are suddenly gone from him. This is one of the points which were advanced in the argument to bring about single-seat constituencies but all of those things were set at nought. People said quite clearly they liked their particular TD and they liked to have their own TD and if they liked him they did not want to get rid of him. People also told me they liked an alternative TD to keep their own particular TD in order. In this redrawing of the constituencies in particular areas of the west of Ireland complicated arguments have been advanced by the Opposition about the breaching of the constituencies. There has not been as much breaching as the Opposition alleged. They referred to Donegal, Sligo, Mayo and Galway and said they were attacked. A portion of Roscommon has gone to make up a seat in Galway-Clare.

And a portion gone to east Galway.

Roscommon has got back Ballaghaderreen from Mayo. There had to be breaching in some cases. There was talk about Leitrim but I do not know how you could do anything with it other than what is being done.

I know what Leitrim will do with you.

Perhaps, you do but if I were you I would concern myself with Deputy Reynolds and let Deputy Gallagher look after himself.

I will do that.

I do not know what you would have done. I take it the Deputy would carve up Sligo.

I did not say that. Deputy Gallagher said that.

Did he take 12,000 or 14,000 out of Donegal? The base of Leitrim, at 30,000, was very small on which to try to build a constituency without carving into the surrounding counties to an extraordinary degree—a very difficult exercise for anybody.

The creation of additional constituencies, bringing the total of 42, goes a long way towards bringing about neater constituencies. I think that, ultimately, we shall get down to all three-seat constituencies in this part of the country. I think the best that could be done was done in the city of Dublin. Under our Constitution, the minimum is a three-seat constituency. That makes for somewhat closer contact between the representatives and the electorate.

It would be delightful if the Minister had been able to bring in a layout of constituencies that would suit everybody but I doubt very much if he could do so. The late Deputy Norton, when discussing the last measure of this kind to come before this House, referred to the crazy system that led to the butchering of constituencies. I think he used the word "butchering". So long as we have proportional representation, so long as we have this minimum representation, we shall have this "butchering", if you like to use that word, and this disregard for county boundaries.

I am aware of the regard people have for county boundaries in some ways. I know full well the pride County Leitrim has in its county boundaries and how hard they resist any attempt that Leitrim should be merged with any other county. I think that spirit is evident in nearly every county in the country. Certainly the ideal of preserving county boundaries had not any impact so far as the results of the recent referendum are concerned. It was inevitable that the constitutional position should bring about the present position, in the light of the results of the referendum.

This Bill was inevitable. It could not be delayed. It must go through this House as quickly as possible and become law as quickly as possible so that, at the longest, in 18 months time the country will be in a position to hold a general election in accordance with the terms and conditions of Article 6 of the Constitution which is to the effect that the constituencies must be drawn as nearly as practicable to 20,000 persons per Deputy and not fewer than three seats per constituency. Whilst I hate to see changes in constituencies, I am afraid it is inevitable that we shall have them and continue to have them.

I do not envy the Minister for Local Government the job which confronts him. He will please nobody and I do not think he will please himself.

Whatever one may think or say of the Minister for Local Government one must agree that he is a very thorough and hard-working Minister. I think he has told us on occasion here that he has burned the midnight oil in the course of his duties as Minister. For that reason, there is to me a sort of sinister ring to a reference the Minister made to my constituency in the course of introducing this Bill. He said, in a most casual sort of way, that he should mention that the population figures quoted in the memorandum for the two Cork city constituencies are still tentative. He went on to say that, because of what he termed certain practical difficulties, it may not be possible to arrive immediately at definitive figures. I should be very glad to know and my constituents, the inhabitants of the present constituency of Cork city and of the two proposed constituencies of Cork city north and Cork city south, would be very glad to know, first, what practical difficulties beset the Minister in respect of this area at this time. I should like to know, too, why the population figures quoted in the memorandum for the constituency must at this stage be tentative.

As I said, the Minister does his homework. He is a hard-working Minister. One would think that when the Minister is introducing a Bill—and dealing with the constituency from which comes the Head of the Government—he would be able to put before the House the exact figures for the constituencies into which he intends to carve the present Cork city constituency. As Cork city has an atmosphere of enigma about it at this stage, can the Minister tell us at what stage the riddle will be solved in regard to solid proposals for Cork city? I say this particularly because the inhabitants of the constituency of Cork city have very sad memories of the way in which they were treated by Fianna Fáil Governments in regard to constituency butchering. On the last occasion the constituencies were carved up—and plainly in a spirit of gerrymandering which had no regard whatsoever for a portion of the constituency which, whilst it was then in the county, always looked upon itself as part of Cork city constituency—the Minister and his Party proceeded to carve up the areas of Blackrock and Douglas in such a way that an area of the city, within a quarter of a mile of the City Hall, was shifted into a constituency which sprawled itself away down through County Cork and on to the borders of County Kerry so that people actually living in an area which is portion of the Cork city borough were completely disfranchised so far as Cork city itself was concerned.

If they wanted to find a TD they had to hie themselves off to the country, the nearest TD being at Bandon or in Macroom. The result of all this was that no matter how hard Deputy Creed, my colleague, might work it was terribly difficult for those residents of Blackrock and Douglas to have ready access to him and I, who had been working for them since I first came into this House in 1954, and, indeed, since 1948 when I first stood for election to this House, found I had to deal and very gladly dealt with many of their problems. The people of Cork have not forgotten all this, particularly the people in Blackrock and Douglas. They are fully aware that the Minister and his Party will have the most cynical disregard for their rights if their rights clash with the interests of the Fianna Fáil Party, because the reason Blackrock and Douglas were pushed out of mid-Cork was that they were very notably Fine Gael in their sympathies and that disturbed the balance of Fianna Fáil's power in Cork city constituency with the result that the people returned two Fine Gael Deputies, two Fianna Fáil Deputies and one Labour Deputy.

The Fianna Fáil Party stopped this by the way in which they gerrymandered the Cork city constituency. That is why I say it would certainly be in ease of the peace of mind of the people in Cork if the Minister would confide his intentions in respect of the two new constituencies of Cork city south and Cork city north. I must say that I was not impressed by what I heard of the Minister's speech and of what I heard from Deputy Gallagher subsequently. The Minister referred to the judgement of the Supreme Court which, of course, has gone down in legal and constitutional history. He quoted part of the judgement of the Supreme Court in relation to this matter of subsection 3º of section 2 of Article 16 of the Constitution where it said:

The sub-clause recognises that exact parity in the ratio between members and the population of each constituency is unlikely to be obtained——

and, of course, that is so——

The decision as to what is practicable is within the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas.

And that is so.

It may reasonably take into consideration a variety of factors, such as the desirability so far as possible to adhere to well-known boundaries such as those of counties, townlands and electoral divisions.

We were tired during the recent referendum campaign listening to the Minister, his fellow Ministers and backbenchers doing reverence to county boundaries all over the country, kneeling in front of them in admiration and saying: "We must get rid of PR because it outrages this very important thing to which we should all do reverence, the county boundary." They wept over it and expressed the most sincere concern up and down the country, weekend after weekend. They said that it was dreadful that the Opposition Party should even think of opposing a system of voting which would enable the Government to maintain the county boundaries.

What has happened since then? In his speech today the Minister said that the Oireachtas is in the position that it may have regard to a variety of factors and he names a number of these factors. He indicates that these are some of the factors which he has taken into consideration in preparing this Bill—that there should not be a divergence of over 1,000 from the national average and that there will not be "too great a disparity in the value of the votes to be cast in different areas,"et cetera. However, there was not a word about the county boundaries. The same reverence was no longer due, evidently, to this natural boundary known as the county boundary. The Minister alleged that it was necessary to increase the number of three-seat constituencies from 17 to 26, to increase the number of four-seaters from 12 to 14 and to reduce the number of five-seaters from five to two. Because the Minister has decided to do this and because he has decided to reduce drastically the number of five-seat constituencies and because he has decided to change the geographical position of four-seaters, what has happened? The famous county boundaries are being broken left, right and centre by the Minister and by the Government who so lately were doing reverence to them.

To do what the Minister has in mind he has to transfer 17 pieces of nine counties and almost 100,000 inhabitants. Could the Minister explain why he has changed his attitude of reverence to the county boundaries? Does the Minister ask the House and the country to accept that this was the only manner in which he could have adhered to the other factors which he enumerated in the course of his speech? If he does then he has to reckon with a very interesting article and map which Senator Garret FitzGerald had published in the Irish Independent of November the 19th. In the course of this he showed, having regard to all the factors to which the Minister referred, that he could under a different scheme of redrafting of the constituencies alter them so as to involve changes only of six pieces of six counties and fewer than 40,000 inhabitants.

I should be glad if the Minister would explain how his mind did not move along the same lines as the mind of Senator Garret FitzGerald. I am not tying the Minister to the map or to the suggestions contained in the article; there are various other ways in which the Minister could have approached this if he was sincerely approaching the matter and influenced by the factors to which he referred today and influenced only by the well-being and the convenience of the electorate generally. I do not believe he has done this. I do not believe he has approached this legislation in that spirit. I do not believe the Party he represents has approached this legislation in that spirit. The Minister has approached this in a coldly analytical, political frame of mind. It does not matter to him who is inconvenienced or who will be disfranchised. It does not matter to him that all the county boundaries will be breached, that all the townland boundaries will be breached, that all the rivers will have to be crossed, so long as he can contrive to the best of his ability to ensure that, despite their waning popularity and their waning support, the Fianna Fáil Party will come back into this House in force after the next general election. It is for that reason he breaches these boundaries and does all the things I have enumerated.

He does these things because he wants to get away from the four- and five-seat constituencies where they do not suit him, namely, outside the Dublin areas. Up to now 60 per cent of the constituencies outside Dublin were four- or five-seaters. Now this proportion is reduced to 32 per cent. If the Minister does not like four- and five-seater constituencies one can imagine him daubing the map all over the place with three-seater constituencies and saying: "This is the ideal type of constituency." But that is not so. Suddenly, when the Minister approaches the confines of Dublin, a change comes over the spirit of his dreams and he is all for four-seater constituencies. He suddenly finds a crying Government need for four-seater constituencies and now, in Dublin, you have eight four-seater constituencies where, in 1961, there were only two.

The Minister this morning attempted to justify this. I do not accept his alleged justifications and I do not believe, for one moment, that the people of the Dublin area will accept his justifications either. Anybody with half an eye in his head will readily recognise that what the Minister and his Party are trying to do is to neutralise the swing against his Party shown in these constituencies on every possible occasion that presented itself since 1965 when the Irish people were given an opportunity to express their views on the Government—the Presidential election, the referendum, the local elections—all these showed the writing on the wall for the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil Party now are hoping by this Electoral Bill to neutralise this swing away from Fianna Fáil. I do not believe the Minister will succeed in his designs.

I do not intend to detain the House much longer, except to express the belief already expressed by Deputy Fitzpatrick, speaking on behalf of my Party, and by Deputy Treacy, speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, that, do what they may, the Fianna Fáil Party cannot escape the anger of the Irish people. The Irish people are in full cry after them and, no matter how the Minister may hope to re-define territories, no matter how he may allot three seats here, four seats there and five seats somewhere else, the Irish people will negative everything he tries to do to stop them getting the Government they desire.

Whilst I deplore the spirit in which the Minister and his Party have approached this matter, whilst I deplore the ruthlessness of what they are trying to do, whilst I still await the Minister's explanation as to the practical difficulties which he alleges exist in my own city, difficulties he has not yet ironed out, I am quite certain that this Bill, if it becomes an Act, will fail in its primary object of defeating the desire of the Irish people to rid themselves of the shackles of Fianna Fáil Government.

It is now perfectly obvious that the Minister has spent not weeks or months but, I would venture to suggest, even years on the preparation of this Bill. This Bill, to my mind, is simply one of a number of alternatives which were designed in the Custom House over a lengthy period with the object of meeting any situation which might result from the referendum, the referendum which this Government decided to hold a considerable time ago. It seems to me the first incubation of the notion of a referendum must now be seen to have taken shape with the superficially innocuous proposal and, on the surface, beneficial proposal, made two years ago or more by Deputy Lemass when he was Taoiseach. I refer to the setting up of a committee to review the Constitution.

It has become perfectly apparent in the meantime that the primary purpose of that committee was a feint designed to probe, as it were, the feelings and the convictions of the Opposition Parties in regard to alterations in the Constitution, alterations such as were proposed in the referendum. Over that period of two years it is reasonable to deduce that there has been in progress in the Minister's Department a close study by the Minister's officials of the lie of the land and the disposition of voting strengths throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is fairly obvious now that plans were prepared to meet any eventuality. The celerity with which the Minister was able to produce this Bill following on the, for him, disastrous defeat in the referendum is further proof of that.

To me the outstanding feature of the Bill is the fact that it is a revenge on the Dublin area. Anyone who looks at the Explanatory Memorandum will see quite clearly that the Dublin city and county districts, which contain so great a proportion of the total population of the country, running in the direction of one-third of that population, are so badly interfered with as to make it perfectly obvious that they are being discriminated against by the Minister. Dublin constituencies are required in all cases to produce hundreds of votes in respect of every seat in excess of the national average, which is set out at 20,028 votes.

It does not. The Deputy must not be able to read.

I am reading it here and the Minister can tell me where I am wrong.

It is not there. It is not in that document.

I will go through them all as I am challenged by the Minister. The proposed new constituency of North County Dublin will exceed the national average per seat by——

The national average of what per seat?

Population.

The Deputy said votes.

That was a slip of the tongue. I will come to that. I am glad the Minister reminded me of that. It is very important. He has been making specious arguments on that line. There is no reference whatsoever in the Constitution to the number of voters on the register. The Minister knows that and drags that matter up in all his speeches to try to justify what he terms tolerance but what is discrimination of the most obvious kind. He has tried to drag the number of voters on the register into every speech he has made as if it were relevant. Of course, it is not relevant. As the Minister has challenged me I will go through each of the Dublin constituencies, with your permission, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. There are ten of them. I will indicate the number of population which must exist in Dublin and does exist and which is required by the Minister to justify each individual seat.

In North County Dublin the deviation from the national average population per Deputy is 379. In South County Dublin it is 992, almost 1,000. In Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown it is 893, near enough to 1,000. In Dublin Central it is 970, practically 1,000. In Dublin North-Central it is 952. In Dublin North-East it is 937. In Dublin North-West it is 974. In Dublin South-Central it is 963. In Dublin South-East it is 950. In Dublin South-West it is 973. Those are the Dublin constituencies. You can see the plus sign marked in front of them all in the explanatory memorandum.

That means that that many voters in excess of the national average are required in Dublin to secure a Dáil seat. It is a matter of interest which I want to draw to the attention of the House and of the people outside. In East Mayo for instance a Deputy can be elected for 19,183 members of the population. In Dublin South-East the figure is 20,978, a difference per Deputy of 1,795, and a difference in a three-seat constituency of 5,385. This makes it perfectly obvious that the exercise the Minister is engaged in is a revenge operation on Dublin to reduce its representation so far as he possibly can within the terms of the Budd judgment and of the law as it stands— and to bend it so far as he can possibly bend it—and to rob the people of Dublin city and county to the maximum degree of their full right to democratic representation in this Dáil.

The people of Ireland spoke in the most affirmative way possible. It is possibly true to say that never at any time in the history of the country, let alone in the history of the State, was there such a majority of voters in favour of the single proposition of rejecting the Government's proposal. The people of the country said very definitely that they wanted to retain proportional representation. They also said they would have none of this nonsense the Minister and his colleagues were talking, in which they misnamed tolerance by an abuse of the word and an abuse of the English language. The people spoke in a loud and clear voice on that issue. The Minister is not content to accept that. He proceeds to try to deflect and circumvent the will of the people so far as he possibly can. This is one of the methods by which he seeks to do that—by imposing in the Dublin areas the requirement that the basis of population must be considerably greater in each constituency to return Dáil Deputies than it is elsewhere in the country.

I must say in all honesty that, for the life of me, I cannot see any way in which politicians in Ireland today can determine, except perhaps in isolated instances, how areas will vote and how counties will vote, particularly as we are now living in a historic moment of political change, which has been brought about by the arrival on the register of such a large number of young people who are taking a lively interest in the political scene and who are exercising their votes for perhaps the first or the second time, and also in view of the fact that we have the powerful influence of the new medium of communication, television, to which a lot of this political stirring and activity and consciousness is attributable.

I do not see how it is possible today for any Party to say with certainty where their support will lie, so I am forced back to the conclusion that, in doing what he has done in relation to the Dublin constituencies, the Minister is motivated by the narrowest and most damaging and malignant of political ideas, that is, to get his own back on the people of Dublin city and county for not having fallen in with the foolish, nonsensical, irresponsible and irrelevant proposition which he forced upon the country against the will of the country, against the advice of Dáil Éireann and, I am quite certain, against the advice of many of the older hands in the Fianna Fáil Party who have been dealing with public affairs for a long time. I am not referring to Members of this Dáil, but to those down through the organisation who must have accumulated a good deal of wisdom in the matter of the manipulation of votes since that Party were first established. However, he went on and, as we know, and as he knows now, he wasted the time of the whole country and, indeed, God knows how much money was wasted in that effort. It is impossible to calculate. Some people mentioned £100,000. That is a gross under-estimate of what was wasted. It was nearer £1,000,000 if the whole story were told and the whole picture looked at.

All that is "water under the bridge" now. You would think that he would have taken a lesson from that, but he did not. He appears to be absolutely impervious to any kind of lesson and to have his mind set on proceeding along his own road. If the Irish people will not go with him, he is going that way in any event. It seems to be perfectly manifest that the Irish people are not going with him. The Budd judgment, which he sought to criticise in his attacks on the Constitution—a Constitution brought in by the Fianna Fáil Party and supported by the will of the people—is a splendid production. Indeed, I think it is not too late to pay tribute to Mr. Budd's judgment. I do not know of any piece of work by any court which is so painstaking, so analytical and so objective. I do not know very much about the work in any courts, thank God, but so far as my limited experience goes few works of that kind will compare with the remarkable end product of the labours of Mr. Justice Budd in this matter.

It would have been as well for the Minister if he had taken his lead from Mr. Budd and had not gone messing about as he did with the Constitution to his own detriment and to that of his Party—not that I have any great goodwill to spare for his Party. The Minister in the course of his introductory remarks—I suppose in his case we have to describe a script of only ten pages as mere introductory remarks, because we have seen his performance on earlier occasions when he set up a record in boring the Oireachtas for seven hours at a stretch, all of which contributed to his eventual downfall and the collapse of his efforts—made great play of the question of the number of registered voters in each area. He talked about the number of registered voters before the referendum. He talked about the number of registered voters in Donegal, for instance. In the course of this document today he talks about the number of registered voters in Dublin city. He made the point that there were a greater number of registered voters in certain areas of the west than in the Dublin area. What does that really mean? It means that there were more adults or people over 21 on the register of voters in certain western constituencies he was referring to and that, despite the fact that there was a very much greater population list in Dublin, there were fewer voters registered. It simply means the west is denuded of children and young people under 21 years of age. Is not that what that adds up to? It is not something he should be boasting about. He knows very well, or he must know as well as I do, that there is a colossal population of young children and adolescents in this city and particularly in the suburbs of this city. Does he think time will stop still for these and that they will never be relevant for consideration as voters?

The Labour Party hope to bring about a situation where people will have votes at 18 years of age, but, pending that, does the Minister consider that because a register shows a certain number of votes this year it is never going to change or increase? Surely this is completely irrelevant. The Constitution of the country makes no comment whatever about the register of voters and the number of people on the register. What is the point of dragging it in here? Does he want to sidestep or evade the provisions of the Constitution in this regard? Obviously, he does. What sticks in his gullet is that the Constitution plays down the argument that the number of Dáil seats must be related to the population. The Minister's argument, therefore, is totally false. It is based on the proposition that Dáil seats should be related to the number of people on the register. If that were accepted, it would simply mean that we might very well have to change the constituencies, not after every Census, but every year because there is a new register compiled every year. There could easily be a convulsive change in the numbers on the register as between one year and another. The whole balance whereby Dáil seats are apportioned throughout the country could be completely upset if the matter were based on the register of voters as distinct from the population.

This matter is one which was gone into in depth in the first instance by those who concern themselves with formulating proposals for the representation of the people in the Dáil. It was finally decided very properly and logically that Dáil seats must be related to the population and not to the number on the register. The situation today is that, thanks to the good sense of the people of Ireland, and even in the more limited sense to the good sense of those on the voters' register, the Constitution remains and these provisions remained in spite of the efforts of the Fianna Fáil Party to sabotage a democratic ingredient of that instrument. In spite of their conspiracy, which was hatched over a long period, and in spite of their squandering of a great amount of State money and of other money subscribed by their wealthy supporters in the most expensive form of advertisement and propaganda by every method of communication, they just could not cod the people.

Lincoln it was, if I am not mistaken, who said that you can cod some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time. It cannot be done. Fianna Fáil have discovered that. They did believe that they could do it. I see signs of a revival of the delusion in their ranks already. It seems to me that they are not yet completely disabused of the notion that only they have the answers to the problems of this country. No longer have they the answers to the problems; they are the problem creators. Their very presence in the positions which they hold is a problem that vexes the mind of the nation at the present time and the most common remark one can hear outside this House amongst the people is, "When are you going to get this crowd out?" This remark has replaced the ordinary civilities such as "Good day", "How are you?" or even "A happy Christmas". It springs more readily to the lips. Their going would bring a happy Christmas.

There was a sad occasion recently when a vacancy occurred in the Seanad. The vacancy was filled with a rapidity which was utterly amazing. I think it took 48 hours to fill the vacancy.

(Cavan): It is taking them longer to fill the Wexford vacancy.

That is the point I am coming to. I do not see that kind of haste being shown in the constituency which borders that of the Parliamentary Secretary and it would be very convenient for him——

After Christmas.

Can we take that?

I think so.

Maybe the Parliamentary Secretary would give us a date?

The Parliamentary Secretary has stated now that we will have the by-election after Christmas. May we take that?

You are ready to go.

I think the by-election is not relevant at this stage.

We are ready, willing and waiting.

And well fortified.

And the Parliamentary Secretary will gallop back across the borders into Wicklow with his tail between his legs.

I will go home every night.

If you go down at all, that short cut up from Arklow will be well worn. This Bill is an example of how the will of the people can be thwarted. If anything emanated from the referendum, surely it was that the people wanted to retain proportional representation? Surely, that was evident? Equally, it must be evident to everybody that, if PR is to be operated satisfactorily and fully, it can best be seen to be so in a five-seat constituency or even a seven-seat constituency. Accepting that a seven-seat constituency is unrealistic, in as much as it might very well mean that too great an area would have to be set out for servicing by Deputies, on the basis that a five-seat constituency need not be unreasonably large, would it not have been the logical thing for any Minister of State to provide for five-seat constituencies if he had any regard at all for the people, if he had any concern for what the people wanted? Of course, I know I am asking too much when I mention these things in relation to the Fianna Fáil Front Bench. They do not even look into their heart and if they tried to find that organ I am afraid they would have great difficulty in locating it. They would need the attention of a Doctor Barnard—particularly some of the gentlemen I see here now.

His assistant, Deputy Dr. O'Connell, would do the transplant for you.

It is a proud position for the Labour Party to occupy that we have in our ranks outstanding men in all professions.

Transplanters.

Progressive men. If something is to be done for the improvement of the nation or for the improvement of the patient, it will be done by members of the Labour Party without delay. If the Parliamentary Secretary has difficulties, we will be glad to help him too. Meanwhile, he should keep taking the tablets.

I was trying to address myself, when interrupted so rudely by the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Carty, to this question of the need which exists, indeed, the obligation, the onus, which rests upon any Government to endeavour to translate into action the will of the people. The will of the people has been clearly expressed, that they wanted proportional representation retained. Surely, that will not be denied now?

Is it not being given to them?

A corruption of proportional representation has been offered them in this Bill—three-seat constituencies.

Deputy "Pa" O'Donnell recommended it in Sligo.

Deputy O'Donnell is a free man, as is everybody in the Opposition, unlike the shackled members of the Government Party, although we see signs of restiveness. The native is becoming restless in the back benches, according to what I saw on television the other night, and the Party is in the process of breaking up.

We heard it before, joe.

You are looking at it now, whatever about hearing it.

You saw the proof of it in the referendum.

It is a reality.

Surely, the lesson of that must have penetrated even the dismal walls which surround the brain of the eminent Deputy from the west? In order for PR to work effectively in present circumstances and in order that the will of the people might be seen to be made possible, in fact, there was an obligation on the Minister to come in here with a Bill which would provide for five-seat constituencies, and the maximum number of five-seat constituencies, because of five-seat constituencies do afford the proportional representation system in present day circumstances its best opportunity for working out.

What has the Minister done? So far as possible, he has established three-seaters. What has been the history of three-seat constituencies? Is it not a fact well known to us as practitioners in the art of politics, or call it what you will, that two out of three seats almost invariably have been won by a Party who secured far less than half the votes—something more than 40 per cent of the first preference votes nearly inevitably guarantee to a Party the acquisition of two out of three seats.

Is not this the reason why three-seaters have become so popular in certain areas? In the Dublin area the same thing is liable to apply. The hope is that the Fianna Fáil vote will hold on sufficiently strongly to win two out of four seats in most of the constituencies there. That is the reason for the number of four-seat constituencies in the Dublin area—to enable Fianna Fáil to cling on as long as they can to representation there.

I know, and any person associated with politics in Dublin knows, that the first chance the electorate there get they will sweep the Fianna Fáil Deputies in Dublin out of their way as the winds of winter sweep away the leaves of autumn.

The Deputy is waxing poetical.

I am being factual.

I hope the Deputy is not right.

You can hope away.

It is only natural that the Parliamentary Secretary should hope in that way. Otherwise, we would have to put him on another course of tablets.

So long as they are not "purple hearts" he is all right.

There is nothing the Parliamentary Secretary can do about it. There is nothing either of the Parliamentary Secretaries now in the House can do about it. The change is on its way. I am no prophet and I will not try to foretell what the end result will be.

Are you not doing it now?

He did it before the referendum and you should have taken notice of him.

He did it before every election and we saw the result.

Perhaps I should bring in my pre-referendum literature. Would the Parliamentary Secretary be interested in hearing it again, interruptions and all?

The Chair might not permit it, but I should like to bring it in. I am not a prophet in any sense of the word.

That is good.

However, I can form a fair estimate of what will happens in the near future.

Will the Deputy confine himself to the prophecy.

Prophecy is a different thing. It was enshrined in a document called the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. That was prophecy. Does the Parliamentary Secretary remember it? Does the Parliamentary Secretary recall that bestseller? It used to sell like James Bond. It was said to be a Government prospectus. It was a lot of codology, the term by which I characterised it at its birth. It has now gone, never to be mentioned by the Government because they are ashamed of it. Anyway, it never had any relevance and I hope we shall not hear of its like appearing again in the Dáil. It served often enough, God knows, to baffle the people, to give decent people coming from Mass the impression that a Fianna Fáil apologist standing on a ditch outside the chapel was an economic expert because he was able to use these long words and the people thought he knew what he was talking about. That was the function and the purpose of that document. Even the Government did not know what it was all about. When it was produced to them and when they asked what it was, they were told: "It is the Second Programme for Economic Expansion". Then the Government said: "Go, get it printed and flog it up and down the country". The thing was a disaster, without basis. I am probably being irrelevant in speaking about that document.

But the Deputy is entertaining.

It is costly entertainment. What about the people's pint and their packet of fags.

The Abbey Theatre miss him a lot.

Will Deputies allow Deputy Dunne to keep to the Bill?

"The loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind."

"Bespoke."

It is of no value to the people of this country who are worried about their problems, about bus fares for instance. To them, the question of amusement is of no concern or relevance. If Deputy Carty finds in the miserable plight of many of our people a source of enjoyment——

Come back to the prophecy.

——it only shows how sadistic he and his Party can be. One of the odd things about this Bill —I am glad to see the Minister is coming into the House to hear this little bit—is a creation called South County Dublin. This constituency has been described by members of Fianna Fáil as a dormitory area. I know the Minister proposes to contest this area —at least it is said he does—but I think he will find that the people are far from being asleep. If he is thinking of a pocket constituency in South County Dublin he is blundering. He is running away at a fast pace from Ballyfermot and North County Dublin and is apparently seeking to establish himself in an area where he thinks the people may not know him so well, where he thinks they may not be familiar with the true nature of the man. But I think the people in that area will show the Minister, when the opportunity presents itself, what they think of him.

As I was saying, the Bill is a poor attempt by the Government to meet a situation which has been created as a result of their own malfeasance in office.

Debate adjourned.
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