The Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy John Curran, has given notice that he wishes to make a personal explanation. I have decided to permit the personal explanation by the Minister of State.
Personal Explanation by Minister of State
On 5 October 2010, when responding to questions about the status of preparations for Census 2011, I stated: "My understanding is that on the publication of the final and full results of the CSO that the boundary review is done, not on the preliminary figures."
I have since clarified this matter with the Central Statistics Office and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and now wish to outline the CSO's plans with regard to publication of the results of the census. The judgment in the 2007 Murphy, McGrath and Molloy High Court case concluded that, having regard to the constitutional requirements and the high quality of CSO preliminary population data, consideration should be given to initiation of constituency revisions on publication of the CSO preliminary report on a census, with the revision work being completed when the final data are available.
The Electoral (Amendment) Act 2009 responded fully to the High Court judgment and introduced new provisions relating to the revision of Dáil and European Parliament constituencies. The 2009 Act provides that, in future, commissions will be established on publication by the Central Statistics Office, following a census of population, of the census report setting out the preliminary result of the census in respect of the total population of the State; and a commission will have to report as soon as may be after publication by the CSO of the census report setting out the final result of the census in respect of the total population of the State and, in any event, not later than three months after such publication. Previously, commissions had to await final results before starting work and then had six months to complete their task.
Therefore, the likely sequence of events that will unfold under these arrangements is along the following lines: census to be held in April 2011; preliminary results published in July 2011, which will trigger the establishment of a new constituency commission; final results in March 2012, that is, within one year of census day; the commission would be expected to report within three months, that is, by June 2012; and the 30th Dáil, which first met on 14 June 2007, to be dissolved no later than 13 June 2012.
The final determination of the constituencies for Dáil Éireann is a matter for the Oireachtas to prescribe in legislation.