Vol. 238 No. 11
(South Tipperary): I move amendment No. 1:
In page 4, to delete the entry relating to Carlow-Kilkenny and to substitute the following:—
|
Name |
Area |
Number of Members |
|
Carlow-Kildare |
The administrative area of County Carlow and the administrative area of County Kildare. |
Five |
We might take together amendments Nos. 1, 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16 and 21, as these form a composite proposition. I might point out that a decision on amendment No. 1 covers the remaining amendments in the group.
(South Tipperary): The purpose of this amendment is to unite the administrative area of County Carlow and the administrative area of Kildare to form a five-seat constituency. The various other amendments will make possible certain arrangements in the other constituencies, and there will be sufficient population in Kildare and in Carlow to provide a five-seater under the Constitution. There would be no breach of county boundary or of local authority boundary, and it would be a reasonable constituency. It is also proposed in the amendments here that the administrative area of County Cavan and the administrative area of County Monaghan be united to form a five-seat constituency. Here, again, the united population of both counties is satisfactory to provide a five-seater constituency within our constitutional law, as interpreted by the Budd High Court decision. There is no need for me to say anything about that decision. That is the decision the Minister has accepted and the one he has advised is the correct one. At least it is the one he has accepted. That one joins Cavan and Monaghan and meets the consitutional requirements. I think the Ceann Comhairle has suggested that we go on from that to amendment No. 10.
I might not have made myself clear enough to Deputy Hogan. The position is that, having moved amendment No. 1, he is entitled to discuss amendments Nos. 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16 and 21 together in any order the Deputy wishes but the decision on amendment No. 1 which he has moved will cover the remaining amendments I have mentioned.
(Cavan): On a point of order, and in order that there may be no confusion, am I to understand the position is that amendments Nos. 1, 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 21 are to be discussed together?
Not No. 15.
Amendments Nos. 13, 14, 16 and 21.
(Cavan): Does that mean that a Deputy can speak only once on all the amendments which are taken together, that he cannot speak on amendment No. 1 and then sit down and get up later and speak on amendment No. 2?
The Deputy may make one speech embracing all those amendments.
(Cavan): If he wishes to deal with any of the amendments being discussed together he must deal with them in one speech?
Of course.
(Cavan): Has Deputy Hogan the right to reply?
Yes. He moved the amendment.
(South Tipperary): If it is pressed to a vote must the matter be dealt with by one vote?
Yes, on amendment No. 1. The decision on that amendment covers all the other amendments which are under discussion.
(South Tipperary): Amendment No. 10 is to delete the entry relating to Kildare on page 11. That is the entry in the Bill as drafted by the Minister. He has proposed that Kildare be a three-seater constituency to consist mainly of the administrative county of Kildare, except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Meath. In order to meet this amendment it was necessary to put in that the proposals the Minister had in respect of Kildare as a three-seater constituency with some parts of Meath should be deleted. That is all that is implied here.
Amendment No. 11 is an adjustment to the Minister's proposal in regard to the traditional Carlow-Kilkenny constituency whereby Kilkenny has to be treated as a single administrative area if we accept the idea in my amendment that Kildare be treated as a five-seater and Kilkenny treated as a three-seater. That is all that is implied in this amendment.
The suggestion in regard to amendment No. 13 is that Louth should be treated as a four-seater. This amendment suggests that the four-seater constituency should include the administrative area of County Louth and the district electoral division of Grangegeeth, Mellifont, St. Mary's Julianstown and Stamullen in the administrative area of County Meath. In this respect, if Louth is treated as a four-seater by virtue of the distribution of population in the counties of Louth, Meath, Kildare, Cavan and Monaghan Meath may become a three-seater by the transfer to Louth and then Kildare, being a three and a half seater, must be joined to Cavan to form a five-seater, leaving Kilkenny as a three-seater, as I have mentioned.
Louth has a population of 69,519 and to form a four-seater Louth would have a deficit and would need at least 6,593 to 14,593 to become a four-seater. The neighbouring county of Meath has a population of 67,323. Therefore, that means that Meath has a surplus of from 4,239 minimum to 10,239 maximum as a three-seater and the proposed transfers from Meath to Louth to enable Louth to become a four-seater as suggested here would be Grangegeeth, 463, Mellifont, 454, St. Mary's 2,003, Julianstown 2,369, Stamullen 1,355, that is a total of 6,644. The result of this switch of population would be 76,163 for Louth and 60,679 for Meath. Those figures would allow for Louth to be a four-seater and Meath to be a three-seater. Amendment No. 14 is merely a counter to that. The transfer of the population which I have mentioned from Meath to Louth is the only transfer that would be necessary in that area, leaving Louth a four-seater and County Meath to become a three-seater. Monaghan could be a five-seater and Carlow-Kilkenny a five-seater, allowing the return of about 4,000 people back to Wexford.
Amendment No. 16 is to delete the entry relating to Monaghan in page 12. The Minister has devised and suggested that Monaghan should be arranged with a huge transfer of population. He proposes to take this huge transfer of population from both Counties Louth and Meath and put them into Cavan and Monaghan. He has suggested a transfer from Meath to Cavan of 5,656 people and from Meath to Monaghan of 6,426. In the case of Louth, he suggests transferring a population of 7,532 from Louth to Monaghan and a population of 5,041 from Kildare to Meath. The total transfer of population there is 24,655 resulting in a tremendous breach of county boundaries and also, of course, there must be included in that the implied transfer of 4,398 persons from Wexford to Carlow and Kilkenny.
In the arrangement which I have mentioned, making Meath a three-seater and Louth a four-seater, it would be possible to obviate the transfer of these 24,655 persons which the Minister's plan envisages. It would also be possible, under this arrangement, to reintegrate in Wexford County the 4,398 persons who are at present being taken out of that county. The total transfer of population that my proposal entails is 6,644 as against the Minister's figure of 24,655 and if one takes the additional advantage of the return of 4,398 persons from Carlow-Kilkenny back to Wexford and subtracts that from 6,644, there is only a net transfer of 2,246 in that whole eastern constituency complex spreading from Carlow-Kilkenny to Wexford, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Cavan and Monaghan.
The total transfer of population in that eastern area is 29,053 and the net transfer of population under the system which I have outlined is 2,246 as against the figure of 29,053. There is a tremendous difference here. If there is any validity in maintaining county boundaries or local administrative boundaries and if they have any value —the Minister has said that they have —then this is a classical example of the type of area which might be evolved if the Minister would depart from his notion of trying, under a pre-conceived plan, obviously introduced for his own purposes, of gerrymandering the entire country in so far as the Constitution permits him to do so.
Amendment No. 21 is merely the matter that I have mentioned already. The constituency system which I have outlined here would allow a return of 4,398 people to Wexford and would, therefore, allow the whole of Wexford to be conterminous with the local authority council area of Wexford so that from the point of view of population transfer this is a far more sensible arrangement than any other suggested by the Minister. It does mean the creation of a five-seater, and the creation of the five-seater in the northern part of it, Cavan with Monaghan. It does mean making a five-seater of Carlow-Kildare and the abolition of the five-seater in Carlow-Kilkenny. Carlow-Kildare is a five-seater already. Cavan-Monaghan would not seem to be a good five-seater.
All in all, on balance, it would appear to be a far more equitable arrangement than that proposed by the Minister. It would be free of any suggestion that this is being done purely for political purposes and purely for the purpose of getting an electoral advantage, which, I believe, is the purpose behind the Minister's arrangement of practically all these constituencies. The very general plan he has adopted of three-seaters all over the place, irrespective of county boundaries, is an example of the type of thinking that has been operating in the Minister's mind in this whole complex of constituencies along the eastern part of the country.
I put these amendments to the House and recommend them as being far superior to anything which the Minister has suggested. I have given the figures from the point of view of transfers, with which there is no comparison.
I do not know who suggested that the people of Carlow-Kildare now want a divide and that we want a new constituency of Carlow-Kildare. In his opening remarks Deputy Hogan said we had a former constituency of Carlow-Kildare. It was not the administrative area of Carlow. At that time Carlow was divided into three parts. The south of the county was attached to Wexford to make Wexford a five-seater constituency. Portion of the Tullow area was attached to Wicklow to make it a four-seater. The northern portion of Carlow was with Kildare. There was a constituency called Carlow-Kildare, but the little county of Carlow was butchered into three parts. The normal constituency in that area down through the years was Carlow-Kilkenny. I do not know if representations were made by anybody——
Deputy Sweetman made representations.
——to have this made into a Carlow-Kildare constituency. As well as that, allegations have been made that the Minister in preparing this was trying to ensure that more Fianna Fáil Deputies would be elected than Opposition Deputies. An Opposition man from Kilkenny, not a member of this House, said to me before the Minister introduced this Bill "I bet that a portion of South Kilkenny will be added to Waterford and Waterford made into a four-seater, and Carlow with the remainder of Kilkenny will be a four-seater, whereby the Fianna Fáil Party will win two out of each of these four seats". If the next election is similar to the last one the position would be three out of five. I should like to compliment the Minister on not disturbing Carlow-Kilkenny which has been, except for a few years in the late 1930s, partly attached to Wexford, Wicklow and Kildare. Possibly his Fine Gael colleagues may have been approached by this man. I do not see Deputy Sweetman here. I am sure Deputy Governey or Deputy Crotty do not want this divide-up. So far as I am concerned as a Deputy from that constituency these people whom I know are quite happy and quite satisfied with Carlow-Kilkenny as it is.
Deputy Hogan is to be congratulated on these amendments. The Minister, as we all know, is gerrymandering the constituencies in this Bill. He has transferred 29,000 voters from one constituency to another. Deputy Hogan has made a very simple suggestion that the figure of 29,000 be brought down to a matter of 2,000, and that county boundaries should be retained so far as possible. I have not made any representations nor have I discussed the situation with Deputy Hogan. These are his amendments. He is not taking this thing piecemeal. He is not looking to see what would suit myself, Deputy Nolan or anybody else. He has gone into this Bill very closely and taken a broad look at the whole Bill. He has done very fairly for the Party whom he represents. He has done fine work on this. He has only transferred 2,000 voters as against the Minister's 29,000. The Minister, assisted by expert officials, transferred 29,000 while Deputy Hogan has adjusted the constituencies with something like 2,000 voters transferred.
I myself represent Carlow-Kilkenny. I will be very happy to be a representative, or a candidate at least, for the county of Kilkenny as it was some years before I came into the Oireachtas. The Minister should look very closely at Deputy Hogan's amendments. He has made a very fine study of this Electoral Bill. I am sure the people of Wexford, like every other county, would like to be re-united with their own people in Wexford. Likewise Carlow is being transferred as a constituency to Carlow-Kildare. The people of Carlow would have no more objection to being joined with Kildare than they have with Kilkenny.
Give the Minister an opportunity to speak, or has the Minister lost his tongue?
I dealt with the matter on Committee Stage.
Is the Minister accepting the amendment on Report Stage or not?
I am not.
In the past, over different things, the Minister has changed his mind.
I am not taking part in this farce. This is only for the purpose of delay.
(Cavan): Do I understand the Minister to say he is not taking part in this?
I am not taking part in this farce.
(Cavan): These amendments have been put forward by Deputy Hogan in a genuine effort to improve this measure before it leaves the House. Listening with attention to Deputy Hogan's case it is not surprising that the Minister did not rise to refute it, that he has intimated to the House he does not intend on this Stage to refute the case made by Deputy Hogan but that he intends to rely on the number of heads in his Party and the capability of the feet of the Members of his Party to walk through the Division Lobbies in order to steamroll this measure through the House? His attitude on Committee Stage when he sought to deprive the House of a Report Stage in reality— though he has called his Party the Party of reality—is in keeping with his attitude here this afternoon.
During the discussion on the referendum the Minister made the case— indeed so did the Taoiseach—that there was no merit in moving unnecessarily vast numbers of people from one constituency to another. In the course of his arguments he went on to say that if his Third and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution were not accepted it would be necessary to carry out the wholesale movement of people from one constituency to another. We in Fine Gael told him that no such wholesale changing of people from one constituency to another would be necessary. We were right and the arguments put forward by the Minister, his advisers and his colleagues on the referendum have been proved in more ways than one to be quite unsound.
Deputy Hogan, in moving these amendments, has proved the Minister's arguments to be unsound, but to emphasise the point I draw the attention of the House to the fact that on the referendum debate the Minister for Local Government said that proportional representation would lead to a multiplicity of Parties. We said that was not so, but the Minister went on to say that under the straight vote you would not have multiplicity of Parties. I am merely making a passing reference to this, but we have seen what has happened in Northern Ireland, where there were no fewer than 12 Parties under what the Minister calls the straight vote——
The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries put the Nationalists out. That is typical of the argument put forward by the Minister in support of his constitutional changes. He has put forward the argument that the wholesale changing, swapping about and mutilation of county boundaries would be necessary. We said then, and I repeat it now, that we do not regard county boundaries as sacred. I do not believe county boundaries are something that cannot be changed, but they are something that should not be unnecessarily changed.
Deputy Hogan has, in the series of amendments which he has put before the House on behalf of Fine Gael, demonstrated that, instead of changing 29,053 people, it is necessary only to change 2,246 people. If the Minister was serious in the case he put before the House last year, he should accept those amendments.
We know if the Minister created a three-seat constituency in Kilkenny he could hope to get only one seat, and that would not appeal to the Minister. Deputy Hogan has, in an efficient way, made the unanswerable case that, instead of changing nearly 30,000 people from one county to another, it is necessary to change only about 2,500 people.
To get back to the constituencies of Monaghan and Cavan, it is indeed regrettable to note that neither of those counties is in a position to form a constituency on its own within the Constitution. Neither Cavan nor Monaghan has now, on its own, sufficient population to justify three Deputies—the minimum required by the Constitution. Cavan cannot afford three Deputies because its population has fallen and the same applies to Monaghan. That we must admit, but it is not the fault of the people of Cavan or Monaghan. It is a fact that in 1936 the population of Cavan was 76,607 and in 1966 the population had dropped to 54,022; in other words, the population of Cavan, largely under Fianna Fáil, had fallen by 22,648 in the 30 years from 1936 to 1966. Therefore, under the last census it ceases to qualify for three Deputies. That is something for which Cavan cannot be blamed; the flight from the land cannot be blamed for it. If the Government had a policy, they would have seen to it that industries of one kind or another in the towns would have provided employment and a way of life for the people who were driven from the land under the ridiculous policy of Fianna Fáil in the '30s and afterwards.
The same situation applies to Monaghan. In 1936 the population of Monaghan was 61,289; in the census of 1966 that had fallen to 45,732. Here, in this comparatively small county, we had a drop of 15,557 between 1936 and 1966. Something has to be done for Cavan and Monaghan, but we as a Party think that the ills of Cavan and Monaghan are being cured in a rather unrealistic and unnatural way. We find that it is being done at the expense of the wholesale butchering of County Meath. People are being changed out of Meath into Monaghan; they are being moved into Cavan. As a Deputy for Cavan, I welcome the people of Meath into Cavan if they wish to come. I am quite prepared to offer myself to them in common with the people of Cavan as a representative. But I know that the people of Meath are reluctant to be joined with either Cavan or Monaghan and that they would much prefer the solution put forward in this series of amendments by Deputy Hogan.
I cannot find any good reason for the drafting of people from Meath in two directions. According to the Minister, in the earlier debates on electoral reform, the craziest thing that could happen was that counties should be unnecessarily divided, that was something to be avoided if at all possible. On the Committee Stage the Minister was given a method of avoiding this unnecessary mutilation of Meath. He would not accept that. At this stage he is given another method of avoiding unnecessary disturbance of the people of Meath but, again, he finds it unacceptable.
In so far as the constituencies of Monaghan and Cavan are concerned, I do not think that the people would have any real objection to forming one constituency. As I said on the last occasion, they would much prefer, of course, that their population was sufficiently large to afford them individual representation; they would much prefer that their economy had been looked after by the Fianna Fáil Government in the last 30-odd years in such a way that the population of each county would support at least three Deputies. Indeed, Monaghan supported three Deputies for as long as I can remember until recently and Cavan could afford four up to 1961. The population has so declined that Cavan cannot now qualify for even three Deputies. I do not think these counties would have any real objection to forming one five-seater constituency, letting the people of Meath go where it would be more natural for them to go.
I pointed out that Cavan and Monaghan have a great deal in common. They engage in the same type of farming—dairy farming, pig rearing, potato growing, grass seed production until recently and during the war years flax was grown in Monaghan, a thing unheard of in the rest of the country with the exception of parts of Cork and Donegal. I pointed out that there is a joint hospital board on which members of each local authority have served for 50 to 70 years and they have got on reasonably well in the administration of that board.
The Minister has made the case that it is a long, unwieldy, unnatural constituency. Deputy Mooney rushed into the House on the last occasion that the Bill was being considered and told us that from one end of the joint constituency of Monaghan and Cavan, from Dundalk to Dowra, was a distance of 198 miles.
Inniskeen.
(Cavan): Inniskeen.
One hundred and four miles.
(Cavan): I am saying what Deputy Mooney said.
That is what he said.
(Cavan): I should like the Minister to look at the record. He said 198 miles. That is absolutely absurd.
One hundred and four.
(Cavan): The distance from Cavan to Cork would not be much more than that. I venture to suggest that if the Minister checks the report of Deputy Mooney's speech he will find that Deputy Mooney did make this outrageous suggestion.
He said 104.
(Cavan): From Cavan town, for example, to Dowra is a distance of slightly over 50 miles. From Cavan to the town of Dundalk is about 50 miles, if it is that. Therefore, in this unwieldy constituency the town of Cavan is in the approximate centre of the constituency. The Minister is probably right when he says it is about 100 miles—it may not even be that—from the Louth border to the Leitrim border at Dowra. As a matter of fact, it is about 50 miles from Cavan to Dowra and it must be something in the neighbourhood of 30 to 40 miles from Cavan town to the Meath border—the furthest end of the constituency. That is the very unwieldy constituency that we have been talking about. As I have said, I have no personal axe to grind in this matter. In so far as the constituencies are concerned, I am quite prepared to offer myself with confidence to the old constituency of Cavan, the constituency proposed in the Bill or the constituency proposed in the amendment moved by Deputy Hogan.
I am sorry at having to raise this matter again but I think the virtue of having Monaghan and Cavan combined is that it does provide the religious minority with about a quota between the two constituencies. The Fianna Fáil Party have in the past seen some merit in giving representation to the religious minority where it suited them because they did nominate Senator Cole for the Seanad. But I say, and went on record here before as saying, that I know it was in an effort to deprive the religious minority in Monaghan and Cavan of representation, if they chose to seek it, that a determined effort, a belated and last-minute effort was made within the Cabinet to separate these two constituencies. I really see the hand of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in this, in view of his recent wild statements. As a matter of fact——
He put poor Eddie McAteer out.
(Cavan):——the Minister might be regarded as the Dr. Paisley of the Fianna Fáil Party. In view of his recent mischievous statement and mischievous assertions he could be regarded as the Dr. Paisley of the Party because Dr. Paisley violently disagrees with his Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Blaney, violently disagrees with his Taoiseach over the same matters. If he was the man who succeeded in keeping these two constituencies separated, and if they were separated for the unworthy motive that I have suggested, then he has done a bad day's work. That would be bad enough were it not for the fact that these 5,000 people in Meath have to suffer because they are being driven into an area with which they have nothing in common and which they do not normally visit unless on the odd occasion of an important football match.
I suppose it is really a waste of time appealing to the Minister to be reasonable and to adopt this series of amendments, amendments which are calculated to assist the Minister in complying with what he regards as the provisions of the Constitution and at the same time disturbing the minimum number of people. Instead of disturbing the minimum number of people the Minister has set out to disturb, inconvenience, transport and change the maximum number of people. Of course, all this is done for political purposes. I do not think that the ulterior purpose the Minister has in mind will work. Politically and electorally I have no real fear that the Minister's plan will succeed. I feel that the last stage of the Minister could be worse than the first because in Cavan and Monaghan I am convinced he will end up with two out of six. He knows that if it was a five-seat constituency he would only get two out of five, but surely that would be better than two out of six? Therefore, I say that the Minister's plans will not succeed. Nevertheless, it is our duty to try to prevent the Minister punishing people and inconveniencing people, as he is doing here. I say that he will not succeed because he is a bad judge and his opinion of electoral reform is not worth a lot. In the last 12 months it has been proved to be unsound. On the 16th October his opinion on electoral reform was proved to be an opinion that one would not seek or, if one did, one would not act on it. The Minister should forget about this political playacting, about his efforts to attempt to gain unfair political advantage by this unnatural and, what is more important, this unnecessary chopping up of constituencies and sending people in unnatural directions, and set out honestly to produce a reasonable scheme of constituencies. Indeed, in the heel of the hunt it might be to his own advantage as well as being for the convenience of the electorate.
We did appeal to the Minister time and time again throughout this debate to seek independent advice and now I might make a last appeal to the Minister to seek this independent advice in the drawing of constituencies and to let justice be seen to be done. I appeal to the Minister to admit that he has prejudged the whole position, that his vision is jaundiced as a result of the long drawn out debate on the Amendments to the Constitution and that he could not be expected to go about this business with an open and an unprejudiced mind. I brought in a Bill, with which I am not at liberty to deal in detail at the moment, which provided for the setting up of a commission. The Minister marched that Bill out of the House and gave as his reason that he could not accept it in light of the Constitution. Of course, he could have appointed an independent tribunal and put on it people like Deputy Booth, Deputy Hogan and others, and let them bring in recommendations. Having received their recommendations he could either have accepted them or rejected them. Of course, the danger from the Minister's point of view was that, if he set up an independent committee and invited the members to make recommendations and they recommended a scheme which did not appeal to him politically, he would have been in a very awkward position if he rejected it and would have had to put forward very sound reasons for rejecting it. If those reasons did not hold water he would be well and truly exposed to the public for what he was at, political playacting for political purposes.
If that is the Minister's reason for not seeking independent advice, and I believe it is, it is all the more reason why an independent committee should have been set up, all the more reason why we should have had the benefit of at least an independent committee of Members of the House, presided over, if necessary, by a judge to bring in a recommendation, and only a recommendation. If the Minister says that constitutionally he could not entrust the drawing up of the constituencies to a committee without another referendum, and I know the reluctance of the Minister to embark on that again, he would certainly have done a good day's work if he had done what I suggest and he would have produced a much more reasonable scheme than he has produced. Justice would probably have been done between the political Parties. The electors of the country would have had convenient constituencies and convenient polling places provided for them. Above all, justice would have been seen to have been done and democracy, as we know it, would be the better for it.
I make this last appeal to the Minister even at this stage before the Bill goes to the Seanad, or when it goes in to the Seanad, to have some sort of independent committee to advise him on it.
I shall not delay the House long——
Do your best.
I have never interrupted the Minister in the House and I expect to be allowed to speak when I stand up to do so.
Is that not what you are there for?
Seeing that the first item listed in the amendments here is the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency or the proposed Carlow-Kildare constituency, as a Deputy for Carlow-Kilkenny I wish to say that I have an open mind on this matter. Since I came to the House I have represented Carlow-Kilkenny and that portion of Wexford which was brought in some years ago. Whether it be Carlow-Kildare or Carlow-Kilkenny I do not mind, but we must look at the overall picture. Deputy Hogan proved here quite definitely that in his amendments he is changing something in the region of only 2,000 or 2,500 people whereas the Minister is changing 29,000 or 29,500 people.
When Deputy Esmonde raised the question of Carlow-Kildare and Carlow-Kilkenny here, I think the Minister mentioned that it would involve so many changes that it could not be done. Deputy Hogan has put down the facts clearly for the Minister. There are arguments as to why Carlow-Kildare should be one constituency. They are under the same county manager and we have the Carlow-Kildare Mental Hospital Board, all under one administration. As was pointed out, some years ago it was the constituency of Carlow-Kildare. Admittedly, Carlow at that stage, was divided. The one unfair thing I see is the position of the number of people in County Wexford who have been brought into the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency. I think this was mentioned by Deputy Emonde. We represent them in Dáil Éireann, but when it comes to local elections they are completely separate from us. This should have been taken into consideration.
I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that there should have been some kind of independent committee set up in the House in order to draft these constituencies. It is only human nature—I am putting it mildly in saying that to the Minister—that the political head of a Department when drawing up constituencies will try to draw them up to the advantage of his own Party. That is why there should have been an independent committee to do this job. The Minister should consider the amendments that have been put down by Deputy Hogan and I think he should come to the conclusion that at least he would be disturbing fewer of the population by accepting these amendments than by proceeding with the plan or the divisions he has already drawn up.
The only point I want to make on this Stage is this: the Opposition seem to feel that they are the only people who will lose in this matter. That is completely wrong.
Hear, hear. I am losing the Deputy.
And I am losing my esteemed colleague, a courteous, kindly man.
We shall get a loan of a bucket and mop up your tears.
We have been a great team in County Dublin. Each one of us will lose friends. I am losing a pocket of friends. The Minister is also losing them. They are not going into his area but into South-West Dublin. This is an area in which we got about 70 per cent of the votes in our time together. As I said on the Second Reading, if Saints Peter and Paul came down they would not satisfy everyone. We must accept these things. This is the third time since I came here that constituencies have been changed and in these changes I lost many old friends and dear colleagues. I ask the House to realise that, no matter what commission we had and even if it had supernatural powers, we would not all be satisfied. I am not satisfied because I do not want to lose old friends. We are all human. We have discussed this matter at great length. The constituencies will be reviewed again in another few years.
I think the Minister had a very difficult job in drawing up the constituencies and trying to satisfy his own people as well as the Opposition. Nobody wants to be disturbed, especially if he has been representing the area for a while. One may make enemies but one also makes many friends. This affects all of us and not merely the Opposition. The Minister could not do anything else. I have great sympathy with whoever is trying to divide up constituencies, knowing that he has all sides to cope with. For that reason alone I think we should give this Bill a chance. In another few years we will be revising constituencies all over again. That may not worry some of us, but I will be sorry to lose my dear colleague this year.
I support these amendments. They are fair, just and reasonable and they involve the minimum of disturbance and the minimum of disturbance should be the aim of any Minister who really cherishes all the children of the nation equally. I agree with Deputy Burke that the Minister has a hard job to satisfy his colleagues—that was the word Deputy Burke used—but he certainly made sure he went as far as he possibly could to satisfy his colleagues. There were at least five or six Fianna Fáil Party meetings and a great deal of argument and wrangling went on until they eventually decided on a Bill which satisfied the maximum number of the Fianna Fáil Party and ensured, through gerrymandering and manipulation of county boundaries, etc., that Fianna Fáil would come back, if at all possible, with the maximum number of of seats from the minimum number of votes. If that is not gerrymandering, then I do not know the meaning of the word.
The Minister set out to gerrymander and he should get 100 per cent for his work. Deputy Hogan pointed out that by taking six pieces of territory and transferring only 21,199 voters we could evolve a scheme of constituencies within the Constitution and within the interpretation of Mr. Justice Budd to whose judgment the Minister has referred so often here. But the Minister was not satisfied to do that and his scheme involves disturbing 14 pieces of nine counties and 101,100 people. The Minister has admitted there are alternanatives and any one of those alternatives would be better and fairer than the Minister's proposed scheme.
The Minister, under his proposal, is disturbing 29,050 people in the eastern portion of the country. Deputy Hogan's amendment would involve the disturbance of only 6,640 people. For political reasons the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment. On Committee Stage the Minister told us three-seat constituencies were the most desirable. We claim that some constituencies flout the wishes of the people spoken out loudly and clearly on 16th October last. The Minister forecast that the "yeses" would carry the day by over 100,000. The Minister's proposal, on the contrary, was defeated by over 234,000 votes. That was the biggest vote ever against any Party. That was a humiliating defeat for the Fianna Fáil Party. If, as the Minister now claims, three-seat constituencies are the most desirable, why were there only 17 three-seat constituencies under the 1961 revision? Under this measure there will be 26 such constituencies. For PR to operate properly it is most essential that there should be four-seat and five-seat constituencies. I am sorry the Minister is going because I should prefer to say what I have to say to his face. I know the Minister is not able to refute the case made by Deputy Hogan. I never thought I should see the day when a man who spoke for seven hours, for six hours and for five hours on occasion would suddenly become mute. That is the man who refused to sit down one evening despite two Ministers coming in and ordering him to sit down, on a direction from the Taoiseach. On the last evening before the Adjournment, by agreement between the Whips and with the approval of the Fianna Fáil Cabinet, the Minister was confined to one hour to reply because the Taoiseach fully understood that the longer the Minister went on speaking the more harm he was doing to the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fianna Fáil cause.
Someone referred to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries as the "Paisley" of Fianna Fáil. I suppose the Minister for Local Government can be described as the "Major Bunting" of Fianna Fáil. Some of us are glad that the Taoiseach has at last succeeded in silencing him because the Minister has stated here this afternoon that he will not reply to any of the arguments being made here. Of course, the real reason why he will not reply is that he is not able to reply. The arguments are irrefutable. It is a great pity the Taoiseach did not take the same action with the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries two or three days ago; had he done so the Nationalist cause might have gone better in Northern Ireland. This Bill is just bloody vindictiveness on the part of the Minister. As Deputy Fitzpatrick (Cavan) argued on the last occasion Cavan and Monaghan could be joined together. Indeed, had we not suffered the dead hand of Fianna Fáil over the country in the last 20 or 30 years there would be sufficient population in Cavan and Monaghan today to justify making each a three-seat constituency. Of course, the real reason why Cavan and Monaghan were not combined as a five-seat constituency was that the people came up from the grassroots and, despite all we hear about ecumenism, they asked that Cavan and Monaghan should not be made a five-seat constituency because, if it were, “the Protestants would get a seat. We cannot put the Party Whip on them and make them toe the Party line”. That is well known. It was spoken about in the restaurant the evening those people were up here making representations to the Minister and to members of the Fianna Fáil Party. It is regrettable that such a thing should happen.
We know why the Minister will not agree to make Louth a four-seater, as proposed by Deputy Hogan. He knows, or thinks in any case, that by leaving Louth as a four-seater he has the possibility of getting two out of the three seats. He knows that if Louth were a four-seater Fianna Fáil would get only two seats, and it would be either Fianna Fáil two, and Fine Gael two, or Fianna Fáil two, Fine Gael one, and Labour one. By making Cavan, Monaghan, Meath and Louth three-seat constituencies he hopes to get two out of the three. It might be no harm to point out that before the 16th October the Minister forecast that he would win the referendum by over 100,000 votes. This could boomerang on him in the same way. The eyes of the people are open. They love justice and fair play, and they will not stand for the type of vindictive butchery which has been done in County Meath to try to take the seat there from Deputy Farrelly. His own home area was put into Cavan, part was put in Monaghan, and then part of Kildare was brought into Meath to make up the population for a three-seat constituency.
We know why that portion of Kildare was put into Meath. At that time it was envisaged that Deputy Crinion would change from Kildare and stand for County Meath. We now know that the Minister for Defence has no intention of retiring. Deputy Crinion knows quite well that he is not wanted in Meath, and he is thinking of going up for Kildare or perhaps he is thinking of coming back into Longford-Westmeath. That is the latest. Whoever goes up, we will get two. I am quite certain of that. We do not fear Deputy Crinion or anyone who is brought down from the city or anywhere else and planked on us.
We have listened for a long number of days to a spate of misrepresentations from the Minister. The Minister believes that if you say something long enough and often enough some people will believe it. Even at this late stage, I appeal to him not to kick the people of this country in the teeth and not to continue with this vindictive action in this vindictive Bill. I appeal to him to listen to the voice of reason and to agree to the amendments proposed by Deputy Hogan. If he is not in a position to reply to these amendments I should like to know why.
Does the Minister believe that because he has a majority in the House he can—and we know he can—steamroll his proposals through the House? While he may steamroll these proposals through, the eyes of the Irish people are open. They have found out the present Government. They know the Ministers are arrogant, that they are dictatorial and interested in self-preservation. They know that a Party fighting for self-preservation will fight to the last ditch. The people have found them out and when they go to the country they will get as rude an awakening and as big a defeat as they got in the referendum on 16th October.
In the short contribution I have to make on these changes I shall endeavour to persuade the Government to exercise reason. Electoral changes always lead to difficulties, but those difficulties can become aggravated and exaggerated and quite impossible when the issue is clouded by a desire for Party gain. I do not often gratuitously commend Deputies in this House, but I think Deputy Hogan of my own Party deserves commendation from the House because he has tried to produce, in a most objective fashion, a solution to difficulties that have arisen.
In his Second Reading speech the Minister paid pious lip-service to the idea of a minimum amount of change and a minimum amount of disturbance in order to try to hold together various ancient associations. Never did a man succeed in going so far away from his alleged objective as the Minister did in this Bill. Looking through the Bill generally we find that there has been a fantastic amount of mutilation, a fantastic crossing and linking of unnatural boundaries. Take my own constituency. Not only did they carve it up and give some to Kerry and more to mid-Cork, but they also sub-divided parishes and sections of parishes and townlands in the area.
When one looks objectively at that type of butchery one must inevitably come back to the underlying suspicion that is dominant and paramount in the whole thinking on this Bill, that is, using the juxtaposition of population for the purposes of Party gain. There is no doubt at all about it—and let no one have any illusions about it— this Bill is designed to do as much as possible for as many as possible of the Fianna Fáil Party. Maybe that is good politics, but it is done so crudely that the country is very properly up in arms.
I am not surprised that the Minister does not want to reply to this series of reasoned, proportioned and balanced amendments suggested by Deputy Hogan. If you are throwing 100,000 voters around like snuff in the wind, it takes a lot of wind out of your sails when objective and reasoned proposals can come from Deputy Hogan showing where natural alignments and affinities can be pretio served with a minimal movement of people.
Now, let us ask ourselves, in the cool deliberation of this quiet Chamber this afternoon, why the Minister cannot address his mind in a rational way to this proposal. Deputy Hogan has gone to great trouble—in population analysis, in voting analysis and in constituency analysis—to get a comprehensive plan that is not only workable and practical but, as I have said before, objective in its fairness. I know perfectly well that this Bill will ultimately boomerang on Fianna Fáil. They are a long time due for a drubbing from the Irish people. They got a taste of it in the referendum. They will get a much bigger taste of it in the next general election. It is because they cannot preserve objectivity and create an image in Government of an objective approach to and an interest in all sections of the community that they will get this drubbing and ultimate annihilation.
I rise to speak here not in any spirit of animus. I shall fight for my new constituency, fight for it well. I shall be pleased to fight for continued representation of the people of my native county, unafraid of the result. The people are the jury. We must accept their verdict. I am not a bit afraid of it. We should be able to get a reasonable approach to, and some realistic basis for, changes if we want to give the electorate the feeling that their electoral system is secure and that the basis of election is sound. We cannot do that when we have counties interposed and superimposed on each other with fragmentation of other counties to add bits here and there to bolster up lack of population.
We know perfectly well that Fianna Fáil are terribly worried about the West. Forty years of neglect must take its toll. Therefore, we now have a breaking-up and a divide in the West which can be described only as both catastrophic and idiotic. Anybody looking at the design of the new constituencies can see at once the imprint of the esoteric mind, the rapacious, grabbing hand and the tenacity of power-cling in the design of the scheme. The people in the West know full well now why so many changes were necessary and why seats must be lost. The denudation of the West of its population is the greatest single indictment—sustained, unanswerable, everclamorous indictment—of the failure of this Government to do anything but sweet damn all for the West.
I would remind the Deputy that the amendments we are dealing with at the moment relate to the East.
I am coming to it but I want to get it in the perspective of the damning situation in the West which is now sought to be changed by the use of the East as the cushion against the inevitable loss that must come from the West. The manner in which the eastern area has been carved up was aptly epitomised by the very words of the gracious and avuncular Deputy P.J. Burke when, with suspect tears, he was regretting the departure of his colleague, Deputy Boland, the Minister for Local Government, from his own constituency. With the unctuous humility of a Uriah Heep washing his hands in crocodile tears for the loss of such a colleague, he told us, in effect: "We must lose old friends and we must make new ones". Deputy P. Hogan of South Tipperary seeks to minimise the eastern problem and to keep intact, in the strongest possible way, old associations and borders that have been built up over the years with regard to constituencies —affiliations that have become copperfastened by the passage of time.
Deputy L'Estrange dealt with one aspect of constituencies, on which I have little to say, and that is one of the other esoteric purposes behind this Bill. The Irish people, in an overwhelming way, said: "We want the preservation of proportional representation." That will and that desire of the Irish people should have been of paramount importance to anybody who was framing an Electoral Bill under that Constitutional rebuff. He should have been perfectly aware of the fact that the way to stymie and to stultify and, indeed, to try to defeat the proper working of proportional representation is to get the maximum number of three-seat constituencies because, in a three-seat constituency, there is less effective spread of the proportional representation idea than in any other type of constituency. The Minister is well aware of that and is equally well aware that there is fundamental thinking in opposition to Government today that would allow, under the proper exercise of proportional representation, a gradual build-up of a transfer against the Government to ensure their effective and sudden demise as a Government after the next election.
I am deliberately charging the Government with using this Bill for the purpose of off-setting to the greatest possible degree the effect of the catastrophic "No" they got from the Irish people in their attempt to abolish proportional representation. I say that with complete conviction. I say that the reason the Minister is not prepared to consider as a basis for logical discussion the proposals by Deputy Patrick Hogan is because they are unanswerable in the light of Fianna Fáil's running away from the answer of the Irish people on their Constitutional belief and on their Constitutional support for proportional representation in this country.
Let us take the matter in the fairest possible light. An assiduous Deputy proposes, as does Deputy Hogan, a series of amendments designed to minimise from 100,000 odd down to something just under 7,000 the movement of people in relation to constituencies and in relation to electoral areas. Yet the Minister has the effrontery, the audacity and the ignorant arrogance to say that he will not answer it, that he will make no contribution. Some people might say "mute of malice", I am putting it down crudely and bluntly as "mute of ignorance" because the argument for the amendments is irrefutable. It is a disgrace that anybody has the effrontery to treat this House in that way. If the situation was reversed and there was a Fianna Fáil Deputy over here prepared to make that type of an assiduous, objective contribution it would be welcomed and analysed. Not now. The shutters are down, the doors are locked: "I will not answer debates." He could weary the House here —and, my heavens, he can weary the House when he tries, the same Minister for Local Government—he could weary the House here with marathon runs of eight hours and seven hours and six hours of verbosity and tripe but he cannot come into the House to deal with a series of reasoned, logical, properly symmetrical amendments that take in the whole eastern area and show what is practical, what is reasonable and what can be effective, preserving as much as possible of county bounds, of natural associations.
Again, I say the amendments make for having a number of larger constituencies in which the full force of proportional representation could work naturally and effectively. The Government are going to strangle that effort and this Bill, in the light of the Minister's refusal to discuss reasoned amendments, must now become nothing other than a measure steamrolled through the House for one purpose only, the most shameful and miserable of all purposes, that of trying to bolster up the last agonising days of a onetime mighty political machine that has broken down, that is now dying of exhaustion choked by the tentacles of its arrogance, patronage and abuse of power, that has reached the limit of its power and is now suffering from the reactions of those who have found them out for the unthinking, inept, incompetent Government that they are.
(South Tipperary): The Minister, I regret, has not seen fit to make any comment on these eight amendments. It must be almost without precedent in the House that a Minister has not seen fit to speak or is unable to provide an adequate defence or answer to a battery of amendments submitted to him affecting a Bill which he is piloting through the House.
I recognise the difficulty in a matter like this. I agree at once that no Minister or no single individual could devise a system of electoral areas to please everybody. Somebody said he would need to have 144 Bills to please the 144 Deputies but one would need more than that. One would need a few more Bills to satisfy a few Senators who have aspirations to this House and more Bills to satisfy the host of county councillors who are looking over all our shoulders all over the country. It would, therefore, be clearly beyond the ingenuity of any man to even attempt to produce any kind of electoral Bill that would meet any kind of general acceptance.
It is, nevertheless, the duty of a Minister to produce a Bill, if not in conformity with the wishes of everybody, at least in conformity with certain guiding principles. The Minister has set aside the principles by which he should have been guided and principles to which he professes still to adhere. He has refused to speak on this matter on Report Stage today. He has intimated to us that he has said all he had to say on the opening Stages of the Bill.
The Minister believed in the preservation of local authority boundaries before the referendum. He says he still believes in that. I believe in that also. However, he maintains now that the referendum, as he interprets it, gives him the right and authorises him to discard completely county boundaries. He maintains that the Irish people by their vote in the referendum said: "We do not care a damn about county boundaries any more. Do what you like with them." I contend that the Irish people said no such thing. This is too facile, too glib an interpretation of the referendum result. The Minister is merely putting that interpretation on it to suit his own purposes. The Minister is not naive. He moves around the country and he must be quite well aware of the fact that in all pockets of counties which have been transferred into other counties there is dissatisfaction. I am perfectly satisfied of that from my experience in my own constituency.
The Minister has come up with a new line of reasoning, again to justify what he is doing. He has now come up with the notion that if you are transferring population from one county to another there is a simple way by which you can do it, that the transfer is justified provided the number of people is big enough to make an entity of their own or a county entity within the new constituency. He has not told us what size that type of transfer should be but judging from what he is doing in this particular area I submit that he has transferred a very unsuitable number. My personal view is that if you must transfer people from one county to another you should aim at transferring only a very small number of people, as small as possible. Another type of transfer that would be justifiable would be the transfer of a whole county or the greater part of a county so that the transferred population could elect a Deputy from each Party to represent them in Dáil Éireann.
In my own electoral area of South Tipperary there was a transfer of 11,000 people from Waterford. In effect, that is slightly more than an electoral area. We have five electoral areas in the constituency which roughly amount to only one-sixth. When a convention takes place these people are completely dissatisfied; they feel submerged and have no say even in the selection of a candidate for Dáil Éireann. I cannot see how the Minister can draw the conclusion that a transfer of 12,000 or 15,000 people will, of necessity, make them secure in any single constituency he may devise.
