When the debate was adjourned last night I was considering the Government's proposals on the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Before proceeding along these lines, I should like to clarify a point that arose and was the subject of an interjection by the Minister during my discussion of the Third Amendment. I made the comment that the Minister had suggested in his opening speech that the Committee on the Constitution had recommended as a committee a tolerance of 12½ per cent between one constituency and another. The Minister interjected to say that he had not said any such thing. I said that what he had said at the time appeared to me to have that interpretation. It is as well in the interests of clarity in regard to the debate here, and clarity in the debate throughout the country, that the misunderstanding that has arisen in this particular regard should be cleared up because it is a misunderstanding which has already occurred in other instances.
In the course of his Second Stage speech the Minister—he was talking in regard to the amount of tolerance which would be necessary in order to respect county boundaries—said:
This would not be possible within the deviation of 12½ per cent suggested by the informal Committee on the Constitution in their arguments adduced in favour of the change in the relevant constitutional provisions.
The ambiguity here is that to me it was suggested, listening to the Minister, that he was talking of a deviation of 12½ per cent suggested by the informal committee. It was not a suggestion of the committee as a whole. This question of tolerance between constituencies was a question on which the committee were divided on this and on pages 19, 20 and 21 of the Report of the Constitutional Committee, the arguments for and against are given. It does give rise to ambiguity if the Minister quotes as if suggested by the Committee even if he adds that it was in the arguments adduced in favour. If he quotes it in this fashion it gives rise to a suggestion that this is the view of the committee as a whole.
This misunderstanding has arisen also in the public discussion of these matters. We have had quotations in newspapers which have been taken from one side or other of the arguments, which have been quoted on points on which the committee have been divided, have been quoted in such a way that people will be led to believe that these were the views of the committee as a whole rather than the expression in the committee's report on one or other side of a question on which the committee was divided.
I think it is necessary to be quite clear in this regard and I think the talk of the deviation of 12½ per cent being suggested by the committee is misleading even though there is tagged on to the end of it that it is suggested in their arguments in favour of a change. The committee made no arguments about a change. They quoted arguments in favour of a change and arguments against a change.
In our discussion here and in the discussion throughout the country care should be taken in regard to this question of possible misinterpretation of the way in which this particular report was drafted. The committee was quite aware that there was a danger of misunderstanding but the Minister and the Members of the House can help the public debate by giving a lead in being careful in this particular matter.
To resume the discussion on the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, I spoke last night to the effect that we should be able to get a certain measure of agreement as to the objectives of any electoral system. We should be able to compare the system we have here now with the system it is proposed to substitute by measuring these systems against the objectives on which we are generally agreed. In this way we could avoid a debate of the Government's proposals which would be little more than a swapping of slogans across the floor of the House.
In introducing the Fourth Amendment Bill in the Dáil the Taoiseach cited as the countries to which we might look to see the operation of the new system, the United States, Canada, Australia and Britain. The Taoiseach was so hard up for countries to cite that he was obliged to include Australia in his list and he said that Australia had what is virtually a two-Party system. Australia has not got a two-Party system; Australia has got a multi-Party system in the nomenclature of these things, and Australia is governed by a Coalition Government. It is not true to say that in the present Coalition the Liberals and the Country Party are one united Party. In the tragic circumstances of the death of the late Prime Minister, it was made clear that the Country Party was no mere appendage of the Government of Australia.
These are the examples which we are asked to examine. How good are these systems as models of forecasting what is likely to happen in Ireland? It is not enough to say that something happens in Britain as a result of the adoption there of the relative majority system. It must also be made clear that the circumstances in Britain are reasonably close to the circumstances here so that the consequences of adopting the relative majority system would be much the same.
If we look at Britain, we see that the circumstances which affect the electoral system there are very different from what they are here. Britain has had for many years the relative majority system of election but the consequences of that system have been modified by the circumstance that there is in Britain a substantial concentration of votes in various regions of the country in favour of one or other of the two big Parties. The position in Britain is that the constituencies under the single seat relative majority system can be divided into three—the seats which are safe for the Labour Party no matter how unpopular the Labour Party may become, the seats that are safe for the Conservative Party no matter how unpopular the Conservatives may become and there is also the third group of marginal seats which will determine every election.
Because both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party have these traditional seats in which their majorities are so great that they cannot be eroded by a landslide, under British conditions the consequences of the operation of the relative majority system are modified by the existence of these traditional strongholds. Even with a landslide against the Conservative Party in Britain there is still enough strength left in that Party to act as a vigorous Opposition, to give experience to new Members and to give a sufficiently wide choice so that there is a firm base from which an alternative Government may be found if the people at a later election decide that they wish to give the Conservatives another chance.
It is so also with the Labour Party. If they lose heavily and there is a landslide Conservative victory, the industrial midlands and the Welsh valleys will send sufficient members of the Labour Party back to Parliament so that they will be able to survive as a Party large enough to provide a balanced opposition. This indeed is what happens under the relative majority system in Britain—it saves the system from its own inherent absurdities. It is these concentrations that allow the Opposition to survive a landslide defeat and it has been responsible for the fact that this system has been tolerated by the British Parliament and indeed by all those of the British people who do not happen to belong or wish to belong to the Liberal Party.
If the Taoiseach or the Minister for Local Government or Government supporters wish us to look to Britain for an example as to what would happen here, they must convince us that the situation which would follow in this country would be the same as now happens in Britain. It does not follow because we do not have similar traditional strongholds for one or other major Parties in the same sense as there are strongholds for the Conservatives in the south-east of England or in the English Midlands for Labour. The British system operates on the basis that these strongholds are there but that there are sufficient marginal seats to allow the people to change the Government when they wish and it is this balance in Britain that has allowed the system to work.
What happens if we do not have these? What happens if we do not have sufficient traditional strongholds for a single Party and sufficient marginal seats for a change? We can examine the latter by looking to Northern Ireland. There we have again the relative majority system. What else have we got in Northern Ireland? Again we have concentrations of huge majorities for the Unionists in certain parts and almost equally big majorities for the Nationalists in others. What about marginal seats which would allow this to operate in the way in which the British political system has operated? We have West Belfast but beyond that marginal seat there are no marginal constituencies in Northern Ireland. The result is that we have had the one Government in power, the one Party who have a traditional majority and have been sustained in power. There is virtually no possibility of a change.
This has another important consequence. Because of the presence of these substantial majorities in Northern Ireland, the effect of the abolition of PR had a far lesser effect in Northern Ireland than it would have if PR were now to be abolished in this State. When PR was abolished in Northern Ireland it strengthened the hands of the Unionist Party. It increased the majority of the Unionist Party because the abolition of PR always favours the major Party over the smaller Party.
Was this a very large effect? Whatever we might like to think about the Unionists and their machinations in abolishing PR, in fact the effect was not that large. People might say we can look to Northern Ireland where PR has been abolished and that we can say that there was not a tremendous increase in the number of seats of the Unionists because of the abolition of PR and that therefore the abolition of PR in this State will not lead to a large increase in the number of seats for Fianna Fáil; but it does not follow because in Northern Ireland this concentration allowed the Nationalists in their own stronghold areas to be still represented as an Opposition. If, indeed, the position were in Northern Ireland that the Nationalist minority had been spread more evenly through the Six County area, then indeed there would have been a complete and utter landslide in favour of the Unionists.
Therefore, whether we look to Britain where the operation of this political system gives an alternation of Governments or to Northern Ireland where we find no alternation of Government, we find that in both instances the situation is not necessarily the same as it is here. Why? Because if we look at the results of any general election in this country we find no strongholds for any one Party in the sense that there are strongholds in Britain or Northern Ireland. Our people throughout the country are more uniformly divided in regard to political allegiances and therefore we cannot say from the British experience that the relative majority system will work here as well as it has worked in Britain. Neither can we say from the experience of Northern Ireland that in the event of the abolition of PR the representation of the largest Party will be only of the same order here as in Northern Ireland. We cannot make these assumptions.
When we look at the United Kingdom, as the Taoiseach has asked us to look, we must look at the differences. If we do so honestly we should come to the conclusion that we cannot automatically transfer what happens in Britain to what may happen here. This is the reason why those interested in trying to predict the effect of the introduction of the relative majority system here have had to seek other ways of finding the answer. The Minister in his speech recommending the Fourth Amendment has dismissed as completely unrealistic all the forecasts which have been made as to the effect of the abolition of PR on the representation of the Parties in the Dáil and particularly on the strength of the Fianna Fáil Party in the Dáil.
Let me say immediately that I agree with the Minister when he says that he, I or anybody else cannot predict with any certainty the outcome of the next general election, whether held under PR or under the relative majority system. We cannot predict what would happen but we are not trying to predict the outcome of the next general election here: what we are concerned with in this debate is the comparison of two systems of election and if we can find a basis of comparison that will be reasonable, then we should make that comparison and draw the deductions that appear obvious from that comparison, when made. If we had sufficient data on the outcome of a past election under both systems then we would have something to go on. It is not possible to compare the outcome of a past general election under both systems because the voting which has occurred here has been under our present system and in multi-seat constituencies.
Accordingly, those who have been interested in this have asked themselves whether it would be possible to use the results of the local elections, which are much more detailed, as a basis of an ordinary prediction of the results of the next general election as a basis of comparison of the two systems of election. The Minister has indicated that this is unrealistic and ridiculous. I do not think he should dismiss it quite so readily. I acknowledge that if anybody wishes to compare those two systems which are to be applied to Parliamentary elections on the basis of local elections then in fact the onus is on this person to show that this is a reasonably reliable basis on which to act. Just as I feel the onus is on the Minister and the Government in this general debate to prove that a change, for which there has been no public demand, should be made, so in this minor instance the onus is on those to say that those particular results have been used.
The Minister has said there are two grounds on which those estimates are completely unreliable. Since I am one of those who made such an estimate, one of those who was responsible for a quantitative comparison on the two systems of election the onus is on me to justify what has been done. If we wish to make such a comparison, we must use the elections in which data are detailed enough so that we can get some sort of estimate of what would happen in this country if it were divided up into single member constituencies.
The only data I know which are suitable for this are the local election returns, the local elections in which returns are given for wards and county electoral areas. The Minister has said it is utterly ridiculous to base an estimate on the county electoral areas because in fact the size of county electoral areas varies so tremendously throughout the country. The fact that the size of county electoral areas varies so much throughout the country has no relation to the question whether this data can be used. I trust the size of county electoral areas throughout a single county does not vary from 3,000 to 15,000, or whatever the figures were, which the Minister used.
I do not know how other estimates which can be quoted have been built up but certainly in the estimate I made I did not do anything so stupid as merely to say that every county electoral area could be taken as a single-member constituency under re-distribution. In the estimate which I made, and I feel sure in the other estimates which were made, there was no attempt at taking a one for one relationship between the county electoral areas and the seats which would be available to be filled in single-member constituencies. Adjustments have to be made, I suggest, to make this calculation. There will be instances in which county electoral areas will have to be added together to give a reasonable approximation to single-member constituencies. In other cases the county electoral areas will have to be split and this is a matter of difficulty and a possible source of error, though one of minor error.
My estimate of what would happen under single-member constituencies was particularly difficult in regard to Dublin city because here it is extremely difficult to get a correspondence between the wards and what might be the single-member constituencies, if we were to operate on the relative majority system. Nevertheless, the effort, though difficult, is one that is worthwhile. The Minister has said there can be no possible co-relation. Of course, there is not a direct co-relation but it is possible to get a correspondence.
The second objection which the Minister has made is that all such projections, all such estimates, are completely invalid because there are wider panels of candidates in local elections than there are in a general election. I can speak only for the way in which I made the particular estimate which I made and I cannot speak for any other estimates, to which greater publicity was given, but in the estimate I made I may say that rather than take all the votes which were cast in the local elections in any electoral area, in the vast majority of cases I only took the votes cast for the three major Parties.
This is an assumption, and it is an assumption which I think was justified. In certain cases where we had Independents who were likely to be candidates under a single-member system those were also taken into account. The Minister may think it is quite impossible for anybody to do a calculation of this sort to determine what might be the effect of an Independent candidate who is elected as an independent county councillor, on a general election. I can assure the Minister any person who is elected from a panel to this House has a pretty good idea of the position in the political spectrum occupied by the vast majority of Independent county councillors throughout this country. The estimate in this regard is not such a difficult one.
It is of course admitted that the results of local elections will not be quite what would happen in a general election but they are a reasonably reliable guide on which we can make comparison between the present system of proportional representation and the proposed relative majority system. The fact that they will not be exact does not invalidate them as the basis of comparison. We would like, of course, to have some confirmation of this. I would like to have some confirmation about this contention of mine that they are a reliable guide.
I was reluctant, being trained in the same distinguished engineering school as the Minister, to go ahead with this prediction without testing the assumptions which I had made, without as it were taking a pilot scheme on which I could base these comparisons. In this regard I was extremely lucky because there occurred within a few months the local authority elections and the by-election in the city of Cork. It was, therefore, possible, having decided how I would attempt to predict what would happen in a single-member constituency, to check this prediction by comparing it with the results which were available for the by-election, results which were available, as they always are, after by-elections, in regard to each of the wards of Cork city.
It is reasonable enough to say that by and large the five wards which make up the city constituency of Cork are a fair approximation to the five single-member constituencies which would be set up under a relative majority system for Cork city. So, I was able to test out the manner in which the estimate was made for the whole country against the result for the by-election by comparing voting in one instance for city councillors and the voting in the Parliamentary by-election. When I attempted to predict the results in the five wards in the by-election from the result in the local election, the results were as follows: In the first ward I was one per cent too high; in the second ward, I was one per cent too high; in the third ward, I was one per cent too low; in the fourth ward, I was two per cent too high; in the fifth ward, I was three per cent too low. Taken overall, that is a fairly good confirmation of the method which had been applied, and accordingly it gave me grounds to believe that any estimate which was made for the whole country in the same way in which this sample system had been made for Cork was one which, though not exact, would certainly not be completely unreasonable.
It is possible to make this calculation by making estimates, based on past experience, as to what the net gain will be to one particular party of two parties contesting a final seat when a third party has been eliminated, and, as I say, there is reasonable confidence that in fact we can use this not as a basis of prediction but as a basis of comparison. One can take the counties as they stand with their 1966 populations and work out what the result would be under proportional representation. One can, again, take those counties and their county electoral areas, modified of course to take account of variations in size, and work out what the result would be under the relative majority system. Any dispute as regards the estimates made has been in regard to what would be the position of representation of the Fianna Fáil Party under these two systems. I want to emphasise again that I am not predicting absolute values, merely making a comparison. The result of this comparison is that I estimate that under the proportional representation system the Fianna Fáil Party out of a Dáil of 144 would secure 64 seats, and that under the single-member constituency with the single non-transferable vote the Fianna Fáil Party out of a Dáil of 144 seats would secure 98 seats. This is the result of the prediction and I have given to the Minister and to the Seanad, an outline of the basis on which it is made.
No talk about winning six out of seven by-elections invalidates this comparison. The Minister has in his speech indicated that these predictions that have been made, which I prefer to call comparisons, are on an unrealistic basis. I think the most unrealistic prediction made has been that of the Minister, who has predicted that because the Government have gained six out of seven by-elections, he is therefore quite confident of securing an overall majority at the end of the next election under the proportional representation system. The sample of seven by-elections which have taken place are not a representative sample of the strength of Dáil Éireann. Indeed the easy predictions of confident overall success under proportional representation are based on a method of prediction which any objective person would consider as far less reliable than the particular prediction which I have made here. As I say, it may be looked upon as a prediction but in inverted commas. It is in fact a comparison. The indications of this comparison are that the abolition of our present system of proportional representation would give a bonus of 30 or more seats to the Fianna Fáil Party.
Now it is open to the Minister to argue that this is a good thing, and if he does this, well and good, but I say this—this is an exercise done not in order to prove a point. This was done by the objective techniques which can be used not merely in regard to elections but are used in many walks of life. The indication is that there will be under the abolition of the present system a bonus of 30 seats to the Fianna Fáil Party. The Minister has said that in fact these predictions are completely unwarranted because the county electoral areas do not correspond to what would be the constituencies. The position is that the notional constituencies used for this prediction were made up from the county electoral areas but did not correspond one for one to them, so the Minister's first objection is an objection to something which, in fact, was not done.
The Minister's second objection that there are a wider range of candidates in local elections is certainly not a valid objection against the prediction by me, because in this instance I did not take this wider range of county electoral areas into account. What constitutes the great difference between the operation of the relative majority system as operated in Britain and as it would operate here is the spread of the political allegiances of the people throughout the country. This would mean that whereas in Britain with its built-in majorities and its strongholds for the two major parties a small swing will leave a party seriously diminished but still a substantial Opposition, the application of the same system to this country would indeed leave the Opposition Parties very seriously diminished indeed.
It has been suggested that perhaps this is something that should not be worried about unduly, that if the system does have this effect nevertheless it also has the effect that a relatively small swing will put those Opposition Parties into the same position of overwhelming strength. The suggestion has been made that it may be a temporary disadvantage to the Opposition Parties. I take it that the Minister, who is quite confident that Fianna Fáil will have an overall majority under proportional representation, does not think that the Fianna Fáil Party will get less seats under the new system than under proportional representation, and so I take it that the Minister is confident that if the Fourth Amendment is passed the Fianna Fáil Party will be in a majority at the next election.
Many people have said that the Opposition should not worry unduly about the effects of this system because it has the great merit that their time will come. I personally doubt this. I personally doubt their time will come. In view of the way in which politics has been operated in this country the job of winkling out a Government Deputy from a single-member constituency is something which it would take a political Hercules to do. I think indeed that the position is that it is unrealistic, unfair, even if it is not dishonest, to say that all the Opposition has to do is to take the bruises of the first election under this system and wait for their time to come. An Opposition in Dáil Éireann reduced to 40 living in the hope that some day they will be 80 or 100—is this what we want from an electoral system?
Do we want this continuous oscillation. Do we want to put in a Government in a position which is not a position of strength and then say "When we get tired of them let us bring back 100 Opposition Members into the Dáil and let them form the Government?" We will find that less than half of them will have any parliamentary experience. This indeed may be a good thing from the point of view of a Government that is getting out. If the Government are really sincere in their belief that we want to have in this country a parliamentary system in which there is a real alternative then this is not the way to do it. It is unrealistic to think that the Opposition Parties can accept the blows of the first election and come back again.
This, quite frankly, is one of the reasons why I as a member of one of the Opposition Parties am determinedly opposed to this system, because I do not believe, because of the particular nature of our structure in this country, that the chance will come again.
There are many other points which could be made. There are many other considerations which should be the subject for debate in this House but I do not wish to go into them now. I feel sure other Members will debate them adequately. The Taoiseach has asked us to look to other countries. He has asked us to look at the United States so that we can follow their system and avoid coalitions. Is there a greater coalition in the world than the Democratic Party of the USA? Is there a coalition government in Europe which has a wider range than the Republican Party in the US? It is unrealistic to say "Let us look to the USA and avoid the evils of coalition."
The US is founded on two coalitions and so thoroughly are they wedded to the idea of coalition that they have one coalition before the election and another after it. In the US, elections are fought between the coalition known as the Democratic Party and the coalition known as the Republican Party and when the elections are over, legislation is debated and voted on by a coalition of Southern Democrats and Conservative Republicans on the one hand and the liberals of the Democratic and Republican Parties on the other.
When the Government asks us to look at what is happening in other countries let them look at it closely themselves. Due to the rigidity of the two-Party system, the US had to adopt these subterfuges in order to get around the rigidity of the system which moulds their legislature. We are told that the emergence of the multiplicity of Parties is a bad thing for the country. The US would perhaps be a better place today if its political system had allowed for the emergence of a third party.
We see in the US today the protestors taking to the streets and taking to violence because they cannot find expression in the two political Parties into which the US has allowed itself to be moulded. In the United States, which has managed, through this electoral system now recommended to us, to harden its system into a choice between A and B I think the US as a nation has done itself great damage. We have in the US today people who genuinely wish to reform the society of the US through constitutional methods and they are finding themselves without an outlet.
It is not for us here to comment on the present electoral contest in the US but I think we can say that when next November comes, many citizens of the US will find themselves in utter frustration because they cannot exercise the choice they want to exercise in the election for the President of the United States. The system prevents them from making the decision they want to make. All they can do is make a choice between A and B as proposed to them. There will be some of them, of course, in the happy position of being able to vote for Governor Wallace but I should hesitate to put forward the existence of the Dixiecrat movement as an argument for the multi-party system.
We have been told that PR is a divisory force. I say this country is less divided than Britain, is less divided than France, is less divided today than the USA. PR has not been a divisory force in this country. If we look to the countries that the Taoiseach, the Minister and the Government ask us to look at we find they are countries in which divisory forces have been at work.
I do not want to do what the Government are doing and say that the divisions in the US, Britain or France are all due to their electoral systems. It makes me hesitate, however, when I am asked to look there for a healthy political system. When I look I see something I do not like and which I do not want in this country. We are told that PR leads to instability, and the Taoiseach asks us to look at Canada and to look at how they fare under the relative majority system. The present Government in Canada has got an absolute majority. Is this an indication that Canada has been stable? The recent election in Canada was their fourth in six years. Is this the stability that the relative majority system leads to? I do not think it can be. What do we mean by stability? We can have the stability of Northern Ireland where they did not have a change in Government, or are we to have the relative majority system which gives us strong Government and quick turn-over? This is not stability either. This continual oscillation from one Government to another is not stability. True stability is a gradual shifting of emphasis from one point of view to another.
The other question to be considered on this measure is the question as to the degree of freedom of choice which our people want in their electons. Here I should like to quote with approval something which the Minister said in Dáil Éireann:
The fundamental concept of democracy is that the views of the majority are those which should prevail.
The views of the majority, not of the largest minority, but the Government are proposing to us here that the views of the largest minority should prevail. This is not indeed what we want. The Minister has said that in other countries those that top the poll usually have an overall majority so that we have the situation that it is the will of the majority that is prevailing.
This is only true if we have these concentrations of strength which I spoke of before. Only then do you get the position that those who top the poll in the relative majority system will, in nearly all cases, have an overall majority. Our system of PR gives a freedom of choice between Parties, gives a freedom of choice within Parties, and allows our voters to vote across Parties, something which PR systems of the Continent of Europe do not do. Our people have used it well here.
Another aspect which may be part of this debate is the question of the Members of Parliament. This is one of the objectives of an electoral system, not only to elect government but to elect a Parliament, This is a matter which we must consider. I have talked sufficiently on this matter. I do not wish to weary the House any more. I am sure that other Members will bring up this point. In this regard I should like to say that the argument has been used by the Government that certain disadvantages in regard to internal matters in constituencies would be overcome if we had single-Member constituencies. In particular it has been argued that trouble arises in constituencies between Deputies from the same Party and because we have difficulties between Deputies of the same Party we should change our electoral system.
I say here what was said in the report of the Constitutional Committee —in the report, not by the committee— on behalf of one side: "While it may be inconvenient to have more than one Deputy representing a particular Party in a constituency this is not a sufficient reason for altering the Constitution." We could carry these things too far. We had the Minister in his opening statement arguing on this matter and the arguments he put forward were quotations from political correspondents. Here we had the Minister quoting the political scriptures of the political correspondents to suit his own purposes, to prove his own case. I indicated that our approach in the Seanad to this question is to try to get agreement on what we are trying to do when we elect a Government and a Parliament. Having done that, we should be able to compare these two systems. We must recognise that what we are concerned with here is a means to an end, not a dogma or an ideology. We should realise that in regard to these matters there has been no demand for a change and, therefore, the onus is not on us who object to a change but on those who seek a change.
In my opinion there is not sufficient need for a change. There is no demand for a change and in my opinion there will be no change. In the Third Amendment the Minister has proposed an in-built tolerance which is to be laid down not by a commission, as recommended unanimously by the Committee on the Constitution but laid down politically, and this in-built tolerance is one that will grow over the 12-year period until the initial distortion has approached something like three times its size. The change is not one on which the Government have proved their point. The system which has served us well is to be thrown out the window. In regard to the Fourth Amendment as well as in regard to the Third Amendment I see no reason for a change and I have heard no case for a change and I am confident that when the people vote in a referendum there will be no change.
