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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Mar 1969

Vol. 66 No. 6

Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

Beartaítear ag an mBille seo na dáilcheantair a athmheas ag féachaint do na hathraithe ar dháileadh an daonra a léiríodh sa Daonáireamh a rinneadh sa bhliain 1966.

Faoi réir an Acht Toghcháin (Leasú), 1961, céad daichead is ceithre chomhalta an líon comhaltaí atá i nDáil Éireann anois. Nuair a bhí an tAcht sin faoi bhráid an Oireachtais, glacadh go foirleathan leis an líon sin. Ghlac an Dáil leis, freisin, san díospóireacht ar an mBille seo agus, mar sin, ní beartaítear an líon comhaltaí a athrú. Ós rud é go bhfuil Acht na bliana 1961 á athghairm anois beartaítear an fhoráil sin a athachtú in Alt 2 den Bhille seo.

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

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

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

Section 2 provides for a Dáil membership of one hundred and forty-four which is the same as the existing membership and the maximum permissible under the Constitution. There was broad agreement on this in 1961, when constituencies were last revised, and, indeed, in the Dáil debates on the present Bill.

Section 3 provides that after the next dissolution of Dáil Éireann, the constituencies will be those specified in the Schedule to the Bill and section 4 provides that the number of Deputies to be returned for each constituency will be as set out in the third column of the Schedule.

The remaining sections contain the consequential and transitional provisions usual in a Bill of this kind.

The Schedule to the Bill sets out the constituencies and is, of course, the really important part of the Bill. While detailed discussion of the Schedule would not be appropriate at this stage, I should like to mention briefly some general considerations to which the Government have had regard in connection with this Bill.

Subsection 3º of section 2 of article 16 of the Constitution provides that "the ratio between the number of members to be elected at any time for each constituency and the population of each constituency, as ascertained at the last preceding census shall, so far as it is practicable, be the same throughout the country." Having regard to Court rulings on the meaning of this provision it is clear that very many of the present constituencies do not comply with the Constitution and that a revision must be effected before the next election. It is also clear that in devising new constituencies it is necessary to ensure that the population per Deputy in any case should not deviate from the national average by more than 1,000 per Deputy. Within these limits we can have regard to certain factors, especially the ratio of electors to population. There has, so far, been broad agreement on this approach.

The next question to be considered is the size of constituencies. Over the years the tendency has been towards smaller constituencies. At one time we had nine-seat and seven-seat constituencies and the present pattern is one of five, four and three-seat constituencies. The Government have come to the conclusion that the five-seat constituency has proved too unwidely and that no new constituencies of this size should be formed. The two five-seat constituencies provided for in the Bill —Carlow-Kilkenny and Laoghis-Offaly —are existing constituencies and are part of an area which is left undisturbed in the present revision.

This brings me to another important consideration. I think most people will agree that existing constituencies should not be disturbed unnecessarily. For example, the present constituencies of Laoighis-Offaly, Carlow-Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow comply with constitutional requirements and are not being disturbed. Many of the constituencies to the north of this area (Cavan, Monaghan and Longford-Westmeath) do not comply and some change affecting these and neighbouring constituencies is necessary. It has been found possible however to retain each of these constituencies by making a number of boundary adjustments and reducing the Kildare representation by one. The same type of approach has been adopted in the area of Munster excluding Clare.

There are, of course, limits to the extent to which constituencies can be shored up in this way. The Census returns reveal a huge disparity between population ratios in constituencies in the Dublin area and the need for an addition of at least four members. In this case nothing less than a complete recasting of constituencies will suffice. In the area west of the Shannon there must be a reduction of at least three members and widespread alteration of constituencies.

I think most people would agree that, in providing for a new scheme of constituencies in Dublin city, we should proceed on a uniform basis. Given the decision not to form new five-seat constituencies, this means that the 27 seats in the city area should be divided into either nine three-seat constituencies or six four-seat constituencies and one three-seat constituency. The latter course, which is the one adopted in the Bill, has the merit that it involves less disturbance of the existing pattern of representation. At present there are three constituencies on the North side and three on the South side. Under the Bill there will still be three North side and three South side constituencies and in addition a central city constituency. Apart from this consideration, it should be remembered that constituencies in the city area are comparatively small in size and from this point of view there would be little advantage in having three-seat rather than four-seat constituencies.

When we consider the area west of the Shannon we find the position is quite different. This area is large in extent and thinly populated. If the 30 seats in this region are to be distributed in a uniform manner the obvious course is to have ten three-seat constituencies as proposed in the Bill. Even on this basis the constituencies will be fairly large in area. Moreover a division on this basis gives a pattern of representation closer to the existing pattern than would be afforded by a division based mainly on four-seat constituencies. I should add that irrespective of the method adopted the boundaries of most counties in the area must be breached.

The question of county boundaries, or rather of counties and the loyalties and sentiment they attract, is very important. Before 1961, constituencies were firmly based on counties. Excluding the four small counties of Carlow, Laoighis, Longford and Leitrim and the counties with which they have traditionally been grouped, each county either constituted a constituency in itself or was divided into two or three constituencies, which were exclusively within the area of the county. The High Court decision of 1961 forced us to abandon this approach and the court's decision was endorsed by the people at the recent referendum. Nevertheless, I think we should still have regard to the existence of counties, although of course within the narrower limits now permitted. The census returns show that most counties either have a level of population which, if the county were dealt with in isolation, would not permit of a ratio of population to Deputy within the permitted limits or are affected by such a disparity in a neighbouring county. Faced with this problem we can adopt either of two approaches. We can merge the counties concerned in huge constituencies consisting of two or more counties or we can retain the identity of each county and bring the population within the permitted level by making boundary adjustments. The second course, which is more consonant with local sentiment, is adopted in this Bill. There is, admittedly, the difficulty that people in the transferred areas may feel themselves disfranchised but this can be largely overcome if the number of people in a transferred area is significant enough to ensure that candidates cannot afford to overlook them. This point has been borne in mind in the drafting of the present Bill.

These, then, are the main considerations to which the Government have had regard in formulating the proposals contained in the Bill. I do not claim that they are the only considerations to which regard should be had or that the application of these general principles automatically produces a single answer. There are very many other ways in which the constituencies could be revised even on the basis of the general approach now being adopted. What I do claim is that the scheme set out in the present Bill is better than any alternative which has come to notice. I will, if necessary, deal with this in more detail at a later stage.

Finally, I have to say that I regret the necessity for this Bill. I particularly regret the reduction in western representation and the breaching of county boundaries. Under the Constitution as it stands no other course is now open to us. It is in this spirit, and bearing in mind that a general election cannot be held until the constituencies are revised, that I urge a speedy passage of this Bill.

The need for this Bill at this time has been explained on the ground that there is some constitutional problem. I had hoped that the Minister would have clarified this, because his references to it have been vague and unsatisfactory. He has made some reference to the effect that the Attorney-General has given some advice but it is not clear whether this advice was given formally in a manner that would bind the Government or whether it was some off-the-cuff expression of opinion. It certainly is surprising that at this stage after 30 years under the present Constitution it has suddenly been discovered that the Constitution requires in effect, despite what people have believed it to require previously, redistribution of constituencies after every census. Hitherto it had been believed that such redistribution was required every 12 years and that when it took place it should be based on the redistribution of population. On that point there was some doubt as to the exact meaning and there was only a constitutional decision in 1960. How is it that we have suddenly discovered that the Constitution has a different meaning from what everybody thought it meant? How firm is this opinion? The relevant section of the Constitution is Article 16 subsection (2) clause 4 which says:

"The Oireachtas shall revise the constituencies at least once in every 12 years, with due regard to changes in distribution of the population, but any alterations in the constituencies shall not take effect during the life of Dáil Éireann sitting when such revision is made".

This is the clause of the Constitution which primarily governs the revisions of constituencies. It makes it clear that such a revision takes place every 12 years and that it shall take account of changes in the distribution of the population. It is now urged that the preceding section, clause 3, takes precedence over this and in some way overrules clause 4. This clause 3 says:

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

It has always been understood until this peculiar ruling was made that redistribution should be carried out in accordance with subsection (3) of section 2 of Article 16.

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

I think there is a case of ambiguity here, but I would be surprised to hear that there had been a legal ruling on it. This subsection takes precedence over the next subsection which clearly lays down when a distribution is to be carried out. Subsection 3 clearly states how and when it is to be carried out.

We are in the extraordinary position of having this legislation introduced allegedly at this time because of a constitutional ruling, the character of which is unclear. This suggests that all the constitutional lawyers and the Government have not understood the most important point of the Constitution. Indeed, if it is incorrect to suggest that most of our Dála have been unconstitutionally and illegally appointed —a fact to which nobody has referred —the Minister has a duty to explain to the House if a ruling has been given by the Attorney General, and, if so, what the terms of this ruling are and when was it given. This is an extraordinary issue which has been raised and I think we are entitled to know a little more about it.

It seems very suspicious that we are having a redistribution of constituencies of a far more drastic character than anything previously carried out, including 1961, several years before it is required under the Constitution. There must be some suspicious reason for the sudden haste in redrawing the electoral map. I would, therefore, ask the Minister in his reply to give us a full account of the constitutional background of this matter.

In the Dáil the Minister made considerable play of the old argument about population versus electors in explaining the extraordinary redistribution he proposes. This is a rather different argument from the one he presented to us. He must have learned in the Dáil that the argument was untenable so he tried a new one with us. The Minister raised this old hare in the Dáil and used it as grounds for this particular form of redistribution. I would remind the House of the attitude of the Government in the previous debate when the Fine Gael Party in the Seanad proposed to substitute electorate for population. We caught the Government out on this in spite of the fact that they had previously been pressing that it was essential to have regard to the number of electorate, they voted against it. Perhaps, the fact that they aired the argument in the Dáil some weeks ago, but they have not aired it in the Seanad, suggests there is some sensitivity to the attitude of the Seanad to the particular weakness of the argument that was exposed.

The Minister also said in the Dáil, and he said something similar in his speech today, that the boundaries of more than half the counties must be breached and that transfers of population are being kept in this Bill to the absolute minimum. The Minister's idea of breaching boundaries is different from the ordinary sense of the word. The Minister considers the putting of two counties together into one constituency is a breach of the boundary. This is a concept of fairly recent origin because in all distributions we have had previously where you have counties such as Laois-Offaly put in the same constituency this has never been described as breaching boundaries, yet the Minister keeps talking of these combinations as a transfer of population. He is, of course, trying to hide from the fact that he is causing about five times as much disturbance of population as is necessary. He is making people vote outside their own counties by attaching part of one county to another as distinct from linking two counties together, which is the practice that has always obtained and has never been referred to until this debate. In fact, constitutional amendments have never involved the breaching of boundaries or the transfer of population.

The Minister told us in the Dáil— and I think again today—that most county boundaries in the West must be breached. The Minister knows that on Report Stage in the Dáil, Deputy Hogan put forward a distribution for the whole country which involves the disturbance of only one-fifth of the population. In that distribution three county boundaries are breached and there is one combination of two counties in the same constituency, and that relates to an area in which there are 18 boundaries between two counties either within the area or between the area and the next county. Out of those 18 boundaries it is, in fact, necessary to breach only three and in one other instance to link two counties together. Yet he had the gall and dishonesty to say that most county boundaries in the West must be breached. It has been shown that this is not so. Another feature of the western distribution for which no justification has been, or can be, offered is the transfer of West Athlone to Roscommon constituency. In fact, if West Athlone were not transferred to Roscommon constituency the entire distribution would stand perfectly under the Constitution. It is a completely gratuitous gerrymander unrelated even to the rest of the distribution which the Minister is proposing, and if the Minister were to abandon it it would be entirely constitutional. This has been done for purely political reasons.

In his argument about the eastern part of the country the Minister started off by saying that no change is necessary in South Leinster, and having established that fact he has gone on to say that certain changes are required in North Leinster. However this is a dishonest argument as the Minister is aware. Although it is true no change has been necessary in South Leinster for the purpose of having constitutional distribution, there is a desirable change in South Leinster on the basis of the Minister's own argument in the referendum. That is the reintegration— to use a word from the Constitution, about which the Minister is fond of making speeches—of part of County Wexford which has been insidiously partitioned and added to Carlow-KilKenny. It would be desirable in the Minister's view to maintain county boundaries, one of the great arguments in the referendum. It would be desirable that this part of Wexford should be reintegrated with the rest of the national territory, but the Minister does not propose to do this.

If the Minister did so reintegrate County Wexford we would then find that by combining Carlow-Kildare and having Kilkenny as a separate constituency it would obviate the need for a large number of changes in North Leinster which involve the complete redrawing of the whole of the electoral map of North Leinster, first by saying that it is not necessary to have any change for the sake of South Leinster itself, although a change would be desirable, despite the fact that such changes in South Leinster would obviate the need for a number of changes in the North. By this tactic he tries to justify cutting across Kildare-Meath, Meath-Cavan, Meath - Monaghan and Louth-Monaghan. If he adopted the suggested distribution of South Leinster which involves restoring the integrity of Wexford, eliminating all boundary crossings or breaches in South Leinster, combining Carlow-Kildare, and having Kilkenny and Wexford as separate constituencies, it would no longer be necessary to breach the various boundaries in North Leinster which has been done in this extraordinary way with a view to picking up an extra seat for Fianna Fáil.

In fact, the only boundary crossing needed in East Leinster is Louth-Meath and it is necessary to make some adjustment to that boundary, but the other four boundary changes in North Leinster and keeping Wexford partitioned insidiously is unnecessary and is being imposed on the country by the Government for their own purpose.

The Cork-Kerry change is one to which we can take no exception; a small adjustment is needed here and the Minister has chosen a particular boundary area—for all I know he may have had a motive of his own in choosing it. One cannot fault him for transferring more territory than is necessary in that area. We accept this as being reasonable.

We come to Tipperary-Waterford where the Minister had chosen to perpetuate the arrangement under which it is necessary to transfer a large part of Waterford to Tipperary, notwithstanding the fact that the alternative arrangement of switching it the other way round would minimise the disturbance by transferring a much smaller part of Tipperary to Waterford. Here the Minister, for his own political reasons, is maintaining an unnecessary large disturbance.

In the Dublin area we have had some light thrown on the Minister's motivation for the first time here, which he did not vouchsafe to the Dáil. It is not a very blinding light but we are grateful for any indication of the justification of the Minister's distribution in the Dublin area. He started off by saying that, given the decision not to form new five-seat constituencies, the existence of 27 seats in the city area means that it should be divided into nine three-seat constituencies or six four-seat and one three-seat constituency. This contains a number of logical fallacies.

Even if the decision to form five-seat constituencies were accepted— and we do not accept that particularly in city areas such constituencies are in any way objectionable—there exists in Dublin a number of five-seat constituencies. But the Minister's argument is that in a decision not to form five-seat constituencies you can only divide Dublin into three seaters and four seaters. This is nonsense. There are already three five-seat constituencies in Dublin city. Given a decision not to form new five-seat constituencies there are any number of combinations of constituencies in Dublin, including the existing five-seat constituencies already there.

This is a logical fallacy and the Minister's acute mind will not have missed it—in fact, I suspect the Minister's acute mind invented it. Moreover, even if that pattern is true, which it is not, he goes on to suggest that there are only two alternative divisions on 27 seats. The Minister's factorial arithmetic is I am afraid defective. He suggests that you either have to have nine three-seat constituencies or six four-seat constituencies and one three-seat constituency to make 27. I have been doing a little arithmetic and I am open to correction but I suggest three four-seat constituencies, that is 12, and five three-seat constituencies, 15, add to 27. So, in fact, there is nothing that requires the Minister to have nine three-seats or six four-seats and one three-seat and this is also untrue. I do not recall in my brief history in politics any sentence of any Minister which contains so many untruths packed in together as this one does. It is a measure of the dishonesty in the approach to this whole problem that he has managed to pack so many untruths into so short a space.

Incidentally, on the issue of the five-seat constituencies I would recall to the House that the argument against that is that they can be terribly big. Cavan-Monaghan, 60 miles from one end to the other, is a very big constituency but in the city of Dublin you can get a five-seat constituency in which you do not have to go three miles, never mind 60 miles, from one end to the other. So, it is not even clear what is the objection to five-seat constituencies. So much for Dublin.

I should make the point that the distribution proposed by Deputy Hogan minimises the disturbance and it has been designed by Deputy Hogan to do so and he has achieved his objective with twice the success which I have achieved in the suggested distribution I put to this House in the referendum debate in which the House will recall I put forward the point that it was not necessarily the best and I was making no claim it was the best, a distribution which involves the disturbance of only 39,000 people. Deputy Hogan's ingenuity has enabled him virtually to halve this and he has produced a distribution which is far superior to mine and which reduces the disturbance to 20,500 people. This compares with the Government's proposal which involves disturbing over 100,000 people, five times as many. What are the objections to Deputy Hogan's proposal? One would have thought that a proposal which reduces the disturbance to one-fifth of what the Government are proposing would have commended itself to the Government's consideration.

What are the arguments against this? I have searched the Minister's speeches to find the argument against and I think I have found it. There are, in fact two arguments. One is that Cavan-Monaghan would be too big—an interesting point—with 785,000 acres together. I would point out, however, that Donegal-Leitrim must be almost as big and is longer than Cavan-Monaghan and Mayo is almost as big. It is certainly as long as Cavan-Monaghan would be and is a much odder shape. Laois-Offaly which the Minister has left quite happily as it is has 917,000 acres which is about three per cent more than this far too large constituency.

The dishonesty of the Minister's argument is self-evident. There is nothing too big about Cavan-Monaghan compared with other constituencies which the Minister is apparently happy about. The only other argument put forward against Deputy Hogan's distribution that I can see—and the Minister will no doubt remind me if my research is not correct—is that Carlow-Kildare is too straggling. Has the Minister looked at Donegal-Leitrim where you have to go from the middle of Leitrim up through that narrow corridor past Northern Ireland and work your way to the islands off the north coast of Donegal? Has he looked at this extraordinary constituency of East Mayo which he has produced which must be the oddest shape outside the gerrymandered city of Derry that this country has every seen? Compared to this, Carlow-Kildare is not straggling but compact. Those are the only two arguments the Minister has put forward against Deputy Hogan's distribution which would reduce by four-fifths the amount of disturbance of population.

The principal objection, perhaps, to the Minister's proposals is that they involved gerrymandering not so much by boundary changes as such because this is part of the act but by a combination of different sizes of constituencies in different areas. The Government Party have decided if they can to rig the whole of the west at the expense of county boundaries or any other considerations into a series of three-seat constituencies, that in parts of this area or in most parts of this area they hope they can secure perhaps 45/50 per cent of the vote and they calculate that with that percentage of the vote in a three-seat constituency there is an excellent chance of getting two of the three seats. It is a good bonus if you can get 45 per cent of the votes and 66? per cent of the seats. That is pretty good going.

My calculations suggest that a Party which gets 49 per cent of the votes has almost invariably got two of the three seats in this country. Once you get below that you may not in every case get it but down to 45 per cent you have a very good chance. In that arrangement Fianna Fáil hope to get not a majority of the votes—at this stage in their career it is beyond their hopes I think in almost any part of the country judging by the referendum—but to get in any event something approaching 50 per cent of the votes and therefore to get a bonus and to get two-thirds of the entire seats in each constituency. They have divided the west into three-seat constituencies without any regard to county boundaries or any other consideration other than the electoral advantage of the Fianna Fáil Party. In Dublin, by contrast, the Minister is using the extraordinary dubious logic I have referred to of dividing the city into a series of four-seat constituencies with one exception because you cannot divide four evenly into 27. Even the Minister's ingenuity cannot achieve that.

The rest are divided into four because the Minister believes that Fianna Fáil might get between 38 and 42 per cent of the votes in Dublin and, of course, with that percentage, they could get two of the four seats. In that way, the Minister is abusing PR and is introducing gerrymandering into PR which even Miss Lakeman was not aware could be done under PR. She thought that the system was safe. While I was in London last week speaking to a society to which she had been invited, I found her to be quite upset about this when I first mentioned it.

It is too bad that Miss Lakeman was upset.

I am not saying that this gerrymander is as exclusive as it might have been under the so-called straight vote. The ingenuity of Kevin Boland would have effected even more only that PR limits the gerrymander. It is my calculation that as far as gerrymandering is concerned, he cannot do better than this. However, all this will not gain a majority for Fianna Fáil in the next election.

What, then, is the Senator worrying about?

I am worried because I believe there are certain standards in public life that should be maintained. I resent the fact that the Fianna Fáil Government have attempted to gerrymander in such a way as to ignore completely any consideration of county boundaries, and this in the most ruthless way possible.

I know that some people accused Fianna Fáil of gerrymandering in 1961 but I will say that the disruption which they devised in 1961 was one which would involve more or less minimum disturbance. However, they picked the parts which they most wanted to disrupt when they had to cross a boundary somewhere but they did not cross any more than they had to. I would suggest, with respect, that we had as Taoiseach at that time a man who was not prepared to allow his Ministers get out of hand in the way in which the present Taoiseach, politics have been brought to a very low level. At least, Neil Blaney was under some control under the leadership of Seán Lemass but the present Minister is under no control under the present Taoiseach.

The Senator may nor refer to the Taoiseach or to Ministers other than by the title of their office.

I apologise and move to another area. While I do not wish to detain the Minister who, I understand, has an appointment, I wish to make one other point and that is in regard to the need for an electoral commission. I know that different views have been expressed by different people on this question at different times but I believe that it is vital that we have a commission. This may not have been so necessary before when the extent to which gerrymander could be carried out was minimal but now that this operation is on a scale without parallel, it is vital that we have this commission and a Fine Gael Government in office would introduce such a commission, thereby putting an end once and for all to the gerrymandering that this Bill entails.

Business suspended at 6.6 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.

There can be very little doubt that the introduction of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968 in its present form springs from the defeat of the Government in their first attempt to deprive the country of the democratic PR system. This system is the one which as we all know gives the fairest representation to all sections of the community. But what we see in the present measure is the second attempt to take away PR by making it less effective if not, indeed, unworkable.

The Bill is altering the seat content of a large number of constituencies from four- or five-seat to three-seat constituencies when everyone knows that PR can give proper and fair results only in constituencies with more than three seats. We have in the Bill before us a change in the existing provision for 17 three-seat constituencies. These have now been replaced by, I think it is, 26 three-seat constituencies. It is significant also that these three-seat constituencies are located in areas where the Fianna Fáil Party have always been strong and where that Party will reap the fullest advantage in seats in an endeavour to counteract in other areas the growing discontent with their policies. There is, of course, the hope that the electorate will see clearly the purpose behind the manoeurve and will record their protest against the flouting of their already recorded decision.

When we were discussing the Constitution Bill dealing with the constituencies I recall that the Minister showed great anxiety to preserve the county boundaries. What has happened in the interval, unless of course the vote on PR? We have in this Bill a wholesale slaughter of county boundaries to the extent of wiping out one complete county and handing its mutilated remains to Roscommon, Sligo, and South-West Donegal merely to bring advantage to the Minister's Party. Leitrim ceases to exist on the electoral map drawn up by the Minister for Local Government. This is surely super-gerrymandering. I can understand any political party doing all in its power to win control of the machinery of Government but I cannot understand legislation being introduced to ensure the handicapping of opponents to the extent apparent in this Bill in order to win that control. I can recall that the heroes of other days sought only opponents "worthy of their steel". Not so the present Minister. The proposals in the Bill are clearly aimed at securing the defeat of certain Opposition members, Deputies who have proved they are worthy of anybody's steel but who are, at the same time, thorns in the sides of the Minister and his Party. This is a most unstatesmanlike attempt to secure what the Minister considers to be success. What glory can there be when success comes because the fight has been so arranged that all the advantages are with the Minister himself?

Reading carefully through the Bill I was struck by the fact that had the Minister in the Long Title replaced the definite article in line 5 by the indefinite article, the Title would have given the Bill a truer description. It would then have read "An Act to fix a number of Members of Dáil Éireann"et cetera for this indeed is one of the unworthy aims of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968. However, the situation has its hopeful side. Irish people have always had a great regard for those who fight under severe handicaps and it is possible that they in voting will give a repeat performance of their vote on the PR issue. I should have thought the Minister would have learned wisdom in the interval since last October but apparently not. I cannot see the Fianna Fáil voters in the mutilated areas such as Leitrim, Clare, et cetera queuing behind Fianna Fáil and voting for their executioners. There could be another shock in store for the Minister and his Party. The declining spirit of fair-play in the Minister's action as shown in this Bill has been well aired in the other House but we cannot bring about its defeat no matter what we say. However, we of the Labour Party, will record our votes against the Bill and hope that the good commonsense of the Irish people will once again manifest itself by the defeat of the Fianna Fáil Government.

As a person born in County Leitrim I should like to ask the Senator how it is possible to maintain three seats in Leitrim without a population of 60,000.

Surely, the Minister could have linked it to some other constituency and preserve the name of Leitrim?

It is preserved. My comment is this: that ten years ago after the Budd decision when Leitrim had to be cut up, there was nothing suggested by the Senator, or anybody else, to try to prevent what is now happening. I remember saying that the effigy of the person who took the action should himself be burned on the bridge at Carrick-on-Shannon.

I listened with interest to Senator O'Reilly. I shall be brief. I feel we have already said on the Referendum Bills more or less all that is needed to be said on this question. I should like to start by saying something about the breaching of county boundaries. Personally, I do not think there is any great sin in joining two or even three counties together. In fact, it is far more damaging to our democratic system to reduce the number of five-seat constituencies and to maximalise the number of three-seaters. Senator Garret FitzGerald pointed out to the Minister that under the Government's Bill here the disturbance of people as it is called—meaning the linking up of people of one county with another—amounts to some 100,000 people, whereas under Deputy Hogan's proposals in the Dáil it would not be necessary to disturb more than 20,000 people.

I followed as best I could the proposals made in the referendum debate by Senator Garret FitzGerald on the distribution of constituencies and it seemed to me he made a very good case for redistributing the seats, taking into account the depopulation of certain areas. I looked forward, I must say, to seeing the Minister dealing step by step with the case made by Senator Garret FitzGerald. Whether the Minister had not sufficient time at his disposal or for some other reason it seemes to me that he did not deal at all with the case made by Senator FitzGerald then. I refer to it now in the hope that the Minister may, in fact, show us how the Government think it is necessary to have what some six months ago the present Minister for Local Government thought was the appalling prospect of disturbing so many people. The Government have now decided to disturb about five times as many as has been shown by Deputy Hogan to be necessary in the circumstances.

The Minister at the end of his speech said that he particularly regretted reducing western representation and the breaching of county boundaries. If he is sincere in this, and I know of no particular reason to suppose that he is not, there is an obligation on him to demonstrate why he is going so very much against his own inclination and breaching many county boundaries which it is unnecessary to breach. It has been shown to him, both in the Seanad by Senator FitzGerald some six months ago and in the Dáil by Deputy Hogan, that it is not necessary to go anything like as far as he went. So, his painful regret in this matter is unnecessary. On the previous occasion he evaded the issue and did not explain why he could not divide the constituencies as proposed by Senator FitzGerald.

I would ask him this time not to evade the issue but to tell us precisely why he is not taking a division which would disturb the least people in fact. The other portion of this sentence which expresses his particular regret refers to the reduction in western representation. This of course is a reflection on western depopulation. While it would be wrong to blame one Minister or indeed one Government for western depopulation we ought to recognise, all of us in Parliament, that this western depopulation is something for which we all bear a share of responsibility and which in fact is not being catered for by measures taken to change it. The Minister said earlier on in his speech and I quote him:

Over the years the tendency has been towards smaller constituencies. At one time we had nine-seat and seven-seat constituencies and the present pattern is one of five-, four-and three-seat constituencies. The Government have come to the conclusion that the five-seat constituency has proved too unwieldy.

As was made clear in the referendum debate the result of deciding that the biggest constituencies would be five-seaters was that this reduction to five-seaters as the biggest ones reduced the chances of the smaller Parties and of the Independents and increased the margin by which the largest Party would exceed the amount of seats to which proportionately they were entitled. When you reduce from nine seats to seven seats and from seven to five seats the trend is against the Independents and against the smaller Parties and in favour of the bigger Parties. Consequently, when you reduce further from five seats to four seats and three seats you are quite consciously loading the dice against the smaller Parties and in particular against any chance the Independents may have of getting elected.

The Minister simply says: "The tendency has been towards smaller constituencies." I would say the tendency has been in that direction because the bigger Parties have been increasingly intoxicated by the sense of their own power and the feeling that unless they remain in power for very extended periods the country will suffer an irreparable loss. This is not my feeling and I point to the fact that this tendency is simply a big power, a big Party, a Cabinet tendency and does not by any means correspond to the will of the people. The will of the people expressed itself pretty forcefully in the referendum in favour of the system of proportional representation and the effect of proportional representation is least when the number of seats per constituency is smallest. Some people might say: "After all, if that is what Fianna Fáil are doing, that is not so bad." The reason for that is in Article 16 of the Constitution. It prevents them from doing so. In subsection 2, paragraph 6 it says:

No law shall be enacted whereby the number of members to be returned for any constituency shall be less than three.

What the Minister is doing is getting gradually nearer and nearer to this minimum. Now we are being asked to approve a Bill which will give us out of 42 constituencies 26 three-seat constituencies and where possibly we had as many as 14 five-seaters we will now have only two five-seaters.

This is quite definitely going against the whole principle and effect of proportional representation, the issue which was put to the people and the people gave a resounding "No" to the Fianna Fáil policy on that issue. Now the Fianna Fáil Party and the Minister in particular are using this Bill to extract from the proportional representation system the maximum advantage by reducing as far as he dares the number of small seat constituencies and he puts it before us by saying "five-seat constituencies have proved too unwieldy".

I agree with Senator Garret FitzGerald when he asks what does "unwieldy" mean? Let us have a look at some of the three-seaters which the Minister is proposing and ask ourselves are they not quite obviously unwieldy? In fact, the five- or seven-seat constituencies in which five or seven representatives of different Parties often drawn from different localities within the constituencies will give a variety of representation and the word "unwiedly" has no meaning there. If it had a meaning it would certainly apply to many of the constituencies proposed in the Schedule to this Bill.

The Minister, having talked about the tendency towards smaller constituencies and the Government having come to the conclusion that five-seat constituencies were too unwieldy says and I quote him:

Given the decision not to form new five-seat constituencies, this means that the 27 seats in the city area should be divided into either nine three-seat constituencies or six four-seat constituencies and one three-seat constituency.

Senator FitzGerald has already dealt with that and I will not go over it again. I merely mention the fact that the Minister is regarding Government decisions as if they represent the national trend when in fact the national trend was represented by the sound hiding the Government took by nearly a quarter of a million votes in the referendum on the very question of proportional representation and its effects.

The Minister would have us accept his view which he stated over and over again in this House before and in the other House, and I again quote him, when he says this today:

The question of county boundaries, or rather of counties and the loyalties and sentiment they attract is very important.

Having done that he proceeds to slice them and to have, I think I am right in saying, 13 or 14 constituencies which quite obviously cross at least one county boundary. He does this, as has been demonstrated both here and in the Dáil, without its being necessary. Must we therefore assume that either he does not understand what he is doing or that he does not mean what he says? I would regard it as not very useful for us to debate at very great length this measure in which we are being asked to divide up the county into 26 three-seat constituencies, 14 four-seat constituencies and two five-seat constituencies. I am afraid I am driven to accept the view of Senator FitzGerald that the considerations of Party advantage have been in the Minister's mind when he was laying down the lines for those constituencies. This is a harsh thing to say and is something one regrets finding oneself in the necessity of saying it.

As a result of a change in a strictly working class area which voted strongly for him, Dr. Noel Browne lost his seat in the Lower House. Similar changes occurred at the same time as in other areas, for instance, Donegal, the reason being, if we are to believe the Government's theory at the time, the existence of an almost impassable range of mountains. However, it did not become apparent that there was any such range between Ringsend and the rest of Dr. Browne's constituency. On that occasion, in comparision with the present Bill, it was merely the thin edge of the wedge but now the Minister has gone completely to town, as it were, for the purpose of carving up constituencies as best he can and, in the light of past knowledge available to him, in order to ensure that the maximum number of Fianna Fáil Deputies will be returned to the Dáil after the next election.

The Minister may say that the end justifies the means and that it is necessary, in order to save the country, that a maximum number of Fianna Fáil Deputies be returned to the next Dáil. It is quite possible that the Minister is convinced of this but I am not convinced of it and I do not believe that the people are convinced of it either.

The message that we can convey from this House to the people of Ireland is that the Government have noted how positively the people have indicated their wish to have the proportional representation system retained—a wish so clearly expressed in the referendum—and they have decided, in so far as in them lies, to thwart the effects of this system by reducing its effects to a minimum. The Government have reduced the number of five-seat constituencies to two, the number of four seaters to 14 and the number of three seaters to 26 and all this for the advantage of their own Party. This represents a glaring example of contempt for the will of the people and I trust that the people will indicate at the polls to the Minister and to those of his Party who accept this administrative devaluation of the system of PR that the strength of opinion is for fair play and decency and for democratic behaviour under PR as was represented in the referendum and which will have its counterpart in the voting in the next general election.

Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá ar an mBille seo. The Minister, in this Bill, has my sympathy because he has had to perform a most unpleasant task. In normal circumstances, a problem should be to fit the garment to the wearer but, in this case, the job was to fit the wearer to the garment. This garment is an inelastic one and the Minister cannot change it. The provision of 20,000 population per Deputy means that the garment cannot be changed to fit the wearer so the unfortunate wearer must be changed to fit the garment.

There is no use in pretending that this can be done in a painless way even if it is true that there is an infinite number of permutations that could be arrived at in the drawing up of these constituencies. Regarding the question of gerrymandering, I contend that it is impossible to gerrymander unless, firstly, one knows how each individual votes and, secondly, one would have to be sure that the particular voting pattern would not change. This, as we know, is the case in Northern Ireland and it is not to anybody's advantage either here or in the Six Counties to pretend that this Bill is an attempt to gerrymander. It is not possible to compare conditions here under a democratic Government with the set-up elsewhere.

Senator FitzGerald spoke of an attempt to gerrymander when he referred to the fact that a 42 per cent vote might result in a gain of two seats out of four in a four-seat constituency and, in doing that, he portrays his own lack of confidence in the future of his Party. It does not seem to have entered his head that this might be of benefit to Fine Gael. Senator FitzGerald's alternative proposal—the one which he had published in the papers and which seems to be more or less the same as Deputy Hogan's—has at least taken the whole country as a unit and not like some of the other Deputies in the Dáil who, when speaking on the Bill, confined their remarks to their own particular counties. Senator FitzGerald provided a map of the proposed re-arrangement under this Bill. He also provided a map in relation to his own proposals but he neglected to make available a map of the position as it exists at present. In other words, he is thinking in terms of black and white as if there was no such thing as an in-between colour.

For instance, he neglected to refer to the fact that there is at present a constituency of South Tipperary-West Waterford. In the same way, he treated Leitrim as if it was already divided. Some Deputies, when dealing with this question were even less fair—I might say dishonest—because each of them treated his own county as if it existed in isolation and as if the population of his constituency existed in isolation from the rest of the country and as if other counties did not have to be taken into account. We have a typical example of this in regard to Leitrim.

There are two Fine Gael Deputies in the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. Of course, what we in Leitrim would have liked, if it had been possible, would be to have a two-seat constituency of our own because we would then have one Fine Gael and one Fianna Fáil Deputy. The only problem I can foresee in regard to that would be that we would have two Fine Gael friends competing against each other and what I would be afraid of would be that the people in Telefís Éireann who are responsible for televising such bloodsports as coursing, cock fighting and so on might hear of it and then we would have squeamish people objecting to this being shown on television.

They could see it in Mayo.

There has been a lot of talk about Leitrim. Those people who are now regretting the division of Leitrim believe that Leitrim was already divided in 1951. They leave out of account the 1961 court decision. They leave out the recommendations that they made at the time of the referendum. They leave all these things out of account.

Nobody has adequately answered Senator O'Reilly's question as to how they would propose to deal with Leitrim. You have the added problem of Donegal and how do you add either a piece of Leitrim to Donegal or a piece of Donegal to Leitrim? You could not go into Tyrone or Derry or Fermanagh because of an earlier arrangement that was made in 1925 and which may be a little bit embarrassing to some of the people in the Opposition. It is another noteworthy fact that the arrangements proposed by Senator FitzGerald and by Deputy Hogan would result in Ulster representation in the Dáil being reduced by two seats. Not content with having signed away six counties, they now want to reduce the representation from Ulster by two further seats.

The other point I want to make is that not all the people in Leitrim have been changed from the areas in which they are at present voting. People in North Leitrim have been changed into Donegal and a smaller number have been changed from the Roscommon-Leitrim constituency back into the Sligo-Leitrim constituency where they traditionally voted, but two-thirds of the people of Leitrim have not been disturbed at all.

Another thing that was mentioned in the Dáil debate on this was the delegation from the Fianna Fáil Party in County Leitrim that was received by the Minister on this matter. The Minister has stated since that this delegation, men who were honest and sincere, made a better case for the distribution of Leitrim than did any of the Opposition people. The point with regard to Leitrim is that no one has answered the question fairly of what the alternative is to the Minister's proposal, and we are entitled to ask for the answer to that question.

It is rather disheartening in a way to have to resume the session with the present Bill, because in it we find embodied the worst in legislation and the type of approach that is at present threatening to wreck the country outside of Dáil Éireann. Here we find that approach being used in the same way—in other words something which should clearly be above Party considerations and Party advantage is presented to us in a blatant Party fashion.

The question of setting up constituencies should most certainly have been decided by an independent commission or, if that were not available, a commission should have been set up by both Houses that would work on this as Irishmen working together in a committee, Irishmen seeking to get a fair and just solution to a problem. Surely we could work together in a committee and we could, using the ordinary rules of fair play, agree on the proper means of arranging constituencies for this small country of ours? But that was not done, and what is presented is so obviously wrong that to call it a gerrymander is to misuse that much-criticised word, because we find the basic principle used is, first of all, to get away as far from proportional representation as possible, to make the representation as disproportionate as possible, to go against the expressed will of the people only three months ago.

Again, we find the principle involved is to neutralise Dublin and its 40 seats. The next election might just as well not be held in Dublin at all for the effect it is going to have on the final result. Money could be saved by not having an election in Dublin. Senator FitzGerald says that with 40 per cent or 42 per cent of the vote the Government Party would get two out of four seats everywhere but you do not need 40 or 42 per cent for one Party to get two out of four seats in a four-seat constituency. Twenty per cent of the vote is the quota, and the Party getting a quota plus 15, in other words 35 or 36 per cent of the vote, in the Dublin constituencies next time will almost certainly get two out of four seats in every Dublin constituency. That is what the Government are aiming at. That is very plain and simple—that a vote which can go as low as 35 per cent will take half of Dublin's representation. Then the remainder of the country is divided up into three-seaters, meaning that 49 per cent of the vote takes two out of three seats. This is the net effect of the mathematical juggling, but this is not fair play or the type of example that we can hold up to people outside Dáil or Seanad Éireann as to what constitutes fair play here.

Unfortunately, we have been giving very wrong example to the people outside, first of all less than 12 months ago when the Government salary increases were given without any talk whatsoever of productivity or of any other standard except more pay. Secondly, how can we ask strikers or students or others outside this House to sit down and be reasonable and rational people and to work out decisions around the conference table when here in such a vital matter as constituency arrangements we ordinary, sensible Irishmen elected and sent here are apparently not to be trusted by the Government to constitute a committee that could work this out to the satisfaction of all? Time is running out with us, and we have every right to be disturbed with happenings outside this House, but we should look at ourselves and see are we leading. Unfortunately, we are not, because the legislation that has come through here in the past year has been negative, one series after another. Now after the referendum and the loss of time, all we can find time for is this highly negative and wrong piece of work. It is very wrong, and we had better look to it and examine our consciences and see how we can give more leadership. Perhaps the acrimonies of Party debate are undermining our whole structure. Perhaps the time has come when in the present crisis—because crisis is the word for it—we should put a national Government going. The time has come when opponents either in the Government or on the other side will be generous in acknowledging good work done by others, just like Deputy Childers did in London when far away from our shores he was man enough to pay tribute to the excellent work done by Deputy Dillon and the loss he would be to the public life of the country when he retired.

Could we not have a little more positive work? Could we have not a reorganisation of constituencies but a reorganisation of our work here to bring it into line with the requirements of 20th century national leadership, worked out and hammered out at the committee table, in full and generous acknowledgment of the contribution each and every one is making to the future?

A national government? What happened to Jan Masaryk? He was in a national government.

(Interruptions.)

The Senator from the fast-disappearing constituency of Leitrim will probably have an opportunity before the House rises to give me the benefit of his wisdom. Until then I shall continue to develop this. It is obvious that there is a shifting away from proportionality in the five-seat constituency. The man of ability and intelligence who was not simply prepared to make himself a doormat for his constituents, who felt that Dáil representation really meant legislating, not messenger boy tactics, this man, no matter what Party he was in, had a chance in a five-seat constituency of having his real work as legislator recognised by 16 per cent of the people and could just manage to get returned to the Dáil. This is impossible in the three-seat constituency where he has to get between 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the vote before being returned. Consequently, we are making it hard for the real legislator to get back to Parliament. Ideally, Parliament should be a blend of both, but now the whole emphasis is going to the man who makes himself the best messenger boy. This is unfortunate. I wonder if we can do something about it before it is too late, or must we keep on deluding ourselves, feeling all is well within Parliament, but that it is outside Parliament that things are wrong. The outside will respond to leadership from Parliament. My suggestion is that we are not giving them 20th century leadership today.

As to the Bill itself, I do not worry too much about county boundaries. They are outdated in any case and go back to King John in 1200, and if the Minister is undoing some of the work of King John I do not think that is really significant. What is significant is the disproportionality between giving the country one treatment of the three-seat constituency and the city another treatment of the four-seat constituency.

Another point that is wrong is that we have had this recent Bill, in addition to one we previously had in 1961. The next Government is entitled to bring in a new electoral Bill which will neutralise the country and probably throw the deciding power to the cities; in other words, divide cities into three-seat constituencies and the country into four-seat constituencies. That is typical of the unfortunate practice we are encouraging and I would ask the Minister, when he is replying, if he could give us some ray of hope for the future. Could he promise us this is the last time we will be faced with this unpleasant type of manoeuvre and that he will set up a constituency commission to carry out this job in future, once every 12 years, and ensure that as far as possible the same measure of constituency is used in all areas, that if we are going to have three-seaters in the country we will have three-seaters in the city?

Let us go back to the five-seat constituency, and let us, as Irishmen, work together in Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann to set an example to the people outside whom we criticise for not being able to resolve their differences around the conference table. Perhaps we are not giving them the headline. We should resolve our differences and thereby set an example for others.

This Bill is probably what one would refer to as an unpleasant necessity, a necessity that is being forced on the country by the wishes of the people. Some short time ago the people were offered the opportunity of agreeing to a certain tolerance—a one-sixth tolerance—which would not necessitate altering boundary constituencies. Senator Quinlan and those who now so strongly oppose this Bill, which is absolutely essential, were those who persuaded the people that under no circumstances should this tolerance be allowed. They now say that there is an orientation towards the cities and that there should be fewer seats for Deputies in rural Ireland. As a result of their efforts, rural Ireland loses four Deputies and Dublin gains four Deputies. Due to their efforts, 10,000 votes in Dublin are as good as 13,000 in most parts of the country. At that time they concealed the true facts from the people. Population and residence are two completely different things and the city is getting the benefit of the votes not only of the country people who were in Dublin but also foreigners staying in our hotels and people on our ships on that particular night. Now they find that as a result of their determination to oppose everything of which the Government are in favour, rural Ireland loses four seats to Dublin and rural Ireland, per Deputy, must have approximately 20 per cent more votes than Dublin. That is one of the unpleasant results of being two-faced. It is unpleasant when the Opposition feel their sole role is to oppose everything that the Government proposes. That is their definition of parliamentary opposition.

Senator Quinlan asked "Are we leading?" and he replied for himself "Unfortunately we are not". I say "Yes" to that as far as the Opposition are concerned. They led the people by such shibboleths and such catch cries as: "You must have one man, one vote." What they were really saying to them was that ten votes in Dublin city were as good as 13 votes in rural Ireland. Surely any responsible person must accept the normal consequences of his own actions? Now they are not prepared even to do that. Now, because they must deal with this Bill, because this Bill is absolutely essential, they are wondering what colour to put on their opposition and so, of course, they stoop again to the same sort of tactics and they talk about motives. They say the Government are doing it for some particular motive. Can Senator Quinlan or any other Senator in this House say what would the actual result be in any constituency in this country with very few exceptions, how many seats would go to any particular Party? I feel it would be utterly impossible, but of course they must endeavour to attribute base motives and so they talk about gerrymandering. The Minister and the Government find themselves in this position as a result of the efforts of Senator Quinlan and his friends to mislead the Irish people by saying that only 14 out of the 38 constituencies are now within the defined electoral limits.

We are proud of what we did.

(Longford): You are on record as saying that you are proud of misleading the people.

And that 24 of the 38 constituencies must be recast. There is no alternative. There is no option. Twenty of the 27 administrative counties would have to be either added to or a portion taken from them so as to keep within the requirements of the Constitution decided on by the Irish people.

The Minister then finds himself in this difficulty. How does he set about doing it? There is the whole western portion of the country, which is depopulated from Donegal to West Cork, and Senator Quinlan suggests there should be five-Deputy constituencies there. Of course, if there were he would find some other argument against it. Can one sensibly picture a Deputy for County Galway properly serving the entire interests of that county from east to west, from north to south? Can one picture a Deputy from County Donegal, if it were all one constituency, serving properly the interests of that constituency? In rural Ireland, as distinct from the city, various parts of a large constituency require completely different treatment. You have not such a constituency in the city. You have portion of the constituency, like the seacoast, interested in fisheries. You have perhaps the east coast interested in a small industry, you have perhaps some interested in agriculture. Any Deputy who is worth his salt will serve not only his own Party but every constituent in his area irrespective of what Party politics may be affected.

Or outside it.

Therefore, the Deputy on the extreme west coast, where fisheries are a prime concern, a concern which today gives valuable employment, a concern which today adds considerably to our national wealth, must make himself completely au courant with every aspect of that. He must understand the hopes, the wishes, the aspirations, the ambitions of the people in his area it he is going to be worthwhile. No Deputy can do that in a constituency which perhaps from the extreme west to the extreme east is 50 miles or 60 miles or from the extreme north to the extreme south is an equal distance. If a Deputy is to serve his constituency he must know his area thoroughly. He must know not only the members of his own Party. He must know all his constituents and he must also know what is good for his area. He must know what is well suited to his area and he must know the traditions in his area. So, it is quite obvious, if rural Ireland is to be served as rural Ireland should be served, the most appropriate constituency should, at the outside, be a three-Member constituency. Even there the distance may be very great, the interest will be varied and sometimes complicated, but that is the maximum and that is exactly what the Minister has done in this case. Senator Quinlan is satisfied that a certain type of person, somebody whom he suggests is a national leader, a man of whom this country might be proud, would be unable to get one in four votes in his constituency. That is his actual statement. In a three-seat constituency the quota is one more than 25 per cent, one vote more than 25 per cent. Even all of those he has not to get on the first count. He can get transfers.

The Senator referred to somebody who is so little interested in the area, who is so little in the constituency and in the people that between the first votes and the transfers he is unable to get one-fourth of the votes in that constituency. He talks about the unfairness of four-seat constituencies, that they will break two-two, that is to say if a Party gets 40 per cent of the votes in a constituency they will get two seats. All right, they will get two seats but what Party will get the two seats? Will it be Labour? Will it be Fine Gael? Will it be Fianna Fáil? He says it would be fairer to have five-seat constituencies. In a five-seat constituency if any Party gets, between the original votes and the transfers, 51 per cent of the votes or 50.5 per cent of the votes they get three seats out of five; so for the extra 10 per cent, between 40 per cent and 50 per cent, they get one extra seat. He says that is fairer. I do not know. It does not correspond with my idea of fairness.

Are you not dealing with five seats?

Furthermore, he suggests that there should be a revision of the constituencies every 12 years. He is completely ignoring the terms of our Constitution. The only guideline the Government have is the decision given by Judge Budd in which he suggested that 1,000 votes one way or the other would not be objectionable. When the Irish people got the opportunity of voting on a tolerance proposal, on what would have been a reasonable tolerance, they decided——

In no uncertain manner.

——I agree it was in no uncertain terms but I repeat that they did so because of the highly skilful propaganda, slander and backbiting put forward by the Opposition. Having fooled the people once, surely they do not hope to do it a second time? Let us be factual about the whole thing. At the moment, the national average for a Deputy is 10,869 in population and the Government find themselves in the position that they must keep within 1,000 of that. This is what is involved here but, if a tolerance of one-sixth had been allowed, there would be no need to keep within a thousand. The Government could have kept within about 1,800 and there would have been fewer of these changes. Senator Quinlan says he has no regard for county boundaries because they were introduced by King John.

I did not say "because".

He completely ignores the fact that our county councils play a vital role in the life of the nation. There is no section of Government with which they are not associated. They play a very big part in the Department of Health, in the Department of Local Government, in roads, in housing and in tourism. Therefore, the closer the Dáil constituencies can be kept to the administrative areas of county councils, the better; otherwise, a Deputy is a county councillor for one area and a Dáil Deputy for another area. The interests of both areas may be conflicting and the Deputy cannot possibly hope to serve properly those people whom he represents as a county councillor and those whom he represents as a Dáil Deputy.

Senator Quinlan asked the question "How can we give more leadership?" May I answer that shortly for him and for the Opposition in both Houses of the Oireachtas in general? They can give more leadership to the Irish people if they are more concerned with doing what is right than appearing to be right.

Before and during the referendum campaign, the Minister told the people that, if the proposals contained in the referendum were not accepted, the constituencies would be butchered. When we look at the map, it is obvious that that is exactly what the Minister has done. I believe that the Minister should not have been allowed engage in the kind of retribution he did engage in. Deputy P.P. Hogan showed that there was no need to shift people back and forward to the extent the Minister did in the re-arrangement of constituencies. Deputy Hogan pointed out how the re-arrangement could have been carried out with a disturbance of only 20,000 people. The Minister has not answered that and cannot answer it. It is my contention that the proposals put forward by Deputy Hogan would have been carried by an independent commission. It is obvious that, at some future time, and in fairness to the people, we will have to agree to an independent commission being set up in order to have a situation created in which we will be assured of the one man, one vote representation instead of the kind of representation where it is possible to have three-seat constituencies in the country and four-seat constituencies in the Dublin area, as has been done by the Minister. The Minister created a large number of three-seat constituencies in the western areas where there is no wide diversion of political opinion among the people; whereas in the urban areas, where there is a divergence of political opinion, he has created the four-seat constituencies.

This commission that I believe must come at a future date when this political gerrymander can be undone, as it must be under the Constitution, may be sooner than we expect. Looking back over the years we can see that in the past we were satisfied here to revise the constituencies within 12 years to comply with that section of the Constitution, but now we see that a more important section of the Constitution is the one relating to the census, that after every census the constituencies must be reviewed at periods not exceeding 12 years. There is, in other words, a limit of 12 years; but it arises after every census, when the constituency representation must be examined again. As a result of the Supreme Court decision in relation to the balance between representation, it is confined to a difference of 1,000 votes.

Another thing which the Minister has wrongly done in connection with this legislation is that he has allowed the difference of 1,000 upwards as far as the west of Ireland is concerned and downwards as far as the cities are concerned; but already, if the population were to be counted, the difference of 1,000 is far more here in these constituencies than what the Minister is working on. He is working on the 1966 Census, and he knows himself the stampede that has been taking place from the rural areas not alone in the form of emigration—approximately 20,000 to 25,000 a year and even more —but in addition the scramble out of the rural areas into the urban areas particularly towards Dublin city. We are now passing legislation where actually the average is 990 in a couple of cases above what would be required and in fact, as a result of the increased population in Dublin city, this is now probably 2,000 per Deputy above the national average instead of the maximum of 1,000 which was laid down.

So far as the east of Ireland is concerned, and particularly Dublin city and county, the Minister is using the high figure. He has put a figure 1,000 above the national average instead of being fair, because if he were to do it fairly what he should have done was to go a thousand below the national average and then he would come nearer to the real figures as far as representation is concerned. When the next census comes out it will be shown clearly that Dublin city and county are under-represented and a number of the areas which were given the lower figure, that is down 900 fewer than the national average, are actually getting more than they are entitled to even at the present time because the Minister is working on the 1966 Census.

I feel that the Minister could have done a fairer and better job by taking these considerations into mind when he was making out this map. Take Dublin city and county. The natural boundary between the north and south in County Dublin was the River Liffey. Instead of that the Minister decided to give four seats to the northern side of the Liffey, which on population was entitled only to three. In order to bring the figures up he has put in areas from the South County Dublin, such as Walkinstown and even as far as Kimmage Manor, stretching back to Balbriggan to create a four-seat constituency there. This includes areas north and south of the Liffey instead of staying north of the Liffey and providing the north county with three seats only. In the south county the Minister, having given a slice of the south to the north county, is left with only a three-seat constituency, when in fact the area south of the Liffey was entitled to a four-seat constituency. Those of us who are familiar with the political set-up in the constituency of County Dublin realise that it was deliberate on the part of the Minister, in carrying out the distribution of population in this way, in giving to the north county a slice of population to which it was not entitled and in not taking the Liffey as the boundary between north and south County Dublin. We all know, and in fact people outside the city know, that the Liffey runs practically west out from the city towards Lucan and was a fair divide between north and south County Dublin. I can tell the Minister, and he knows it himself too, that the people in the northern part of County Dublin—Skerries, Balbriggan, Rush, Swords and all those places—are shocked to hear that Walkinstown and Kimmage have been put in with the north County Dublin.

We know what the Minister has done in the west. He had to split a constituency there to keep two Ministers from being at loggerheads. My friend from Leitrim mentioned the fact that two Fine Gael Deputies in Leitrim would not be very willing to agree if they found themselves in the one constituency there, but the Minister deliberately drew a line in the County Mayo which could be described as nothing but a clear case of gerrymandering of the constituencies to suit the political set-up of the Fianna Fáil Party so far as County Mayo was concerned.

I am not going to delay any longer except to say that the people were asked to decide on two issues in the referendum, and, whether we like it or not, we must agree that the people have displayed a remarkable degree of intelligence from one election to another. Any of us who have examined ballot papers and the way the people have voted and passed their preferences must agree that the Irish people vote in a very deliberate, intelligent manner. It may not be the way politicians might like to see them vote, but at least we must say that the Irish public are an educated people so far as elections are concerned. In the matter of electoral representation, we got a very clear call from the people in the referendum. They turned down by a huge majority —the biggest defeat ever suffered by a political Party in this country—the two proposals, one being the "tolerance" proposal that was an opportunity to fiddle with the figure as far as representation is concerned and the other was the straight vote system.

In Northern Ireland there are only 13 Opposition members in Stormont, although the number of persons who voted for Opposition members is probably as high as 33? per cent. We have not that kind of representation in this part of the country under the present system which we have decided to keep, but we could have found ourselves in the same situation as Northern Ireland if the direct vote system had been accepted, with three-quarters of the members for Fianna Fáil and one-quarter for the Opposition, although they might have obtained up to 49 per cent of the vote.

I feel even at this stage, although I suppose it is nearly too late, that the Minister should consider bringing in amendments to this Bill which would bring the representation into line. The Minister is not just legislating for Fianna Fáil. He thinks he is and that was his object, but he is legislating for future generations, and in fairness to people who will be voting in five, ten or 15 years, he should ensure it is a case of one man one vote and equal representation for all the electors.

The argument about people on boats, in hotels, hospitals and so on is just a spurious argument, although the Minister has tried to win it by putting forward figures to support his case. It was suggested, for instance, when the Minister was amending the Constitution, that the question of the electors could be brought in instead of the census population. But that amendment was not carried out and the Minister cannot have it both ways.

I would ask the Minister to adopt the scheme put forward by Deputy Hogan. It seems the best and fairest one and will ensure that people will get equal representation instead of Fianna Fáil getting more than they are entitled to in some areas where the line has been drawn in a manner the Minister thinks will suit them.

I have listened in amazement to the contribution made by Senator Nash. I was astounded at some of the assertions he made. One argument he used was that the number of foreigners who happen to be in the country at a given time have an opportunity to vote in this country. He must be aware of the fact that one must declare oneself to be an Irish national before being permitted to register as an elector. This fallacious argument has been advanced and repeated ad nauseam. I feel some sympathy with British residents here who use the argument that when an Irishman becomes resident in Britain he is immediately given the right to vote in the British elections, but we, in the special committee that sat on electoral reforms, came to the conclusion we should adhere to our decision to confine the responsibility and privilege of voting in this country to our own nationals. I was amazed to hear a man of Senator Nash's qualifications refer to the fact that people coming off ships can vote here.

He did not say that. He said they were counted in the population.

I am coming to that point and I intend to deal with it. This point of basing the constituencies on population figures was endorsed in the 1937 Constitution after many years of experience of the original Free State Constitution. It was the Fianna Fáil Party, led by a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil Ministers, who presented that Constitution and it was passed by the country and enacted on the advice of the Fianna Fáil Government on the basis of population. However, I am sure that the originators of that proposal did not foresee the entire denuding of the population of the western seaboard which occurred during the 30 years of their administration. If there are crocodile tears today at the loss of seats in the western seaboard, it is merely a consequence of the fact that the people whom one would expect to have voting rights in those areas are now voting in London, Coventry and Birmingham and are more concerned with the advantages of a Labour or Conservative Government in Britain than they are about putting in a Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour Government in the Republic.

At any rate, a big song and dance is being made about the dire effect it would have on the western seaboard to have that area lose some Deputies —three or four—but it cannot be forgotten that the present Government, and the preceding Governments, have had four Ministers representing that region and it is a reflection on those Ministers if they have failed to influence Government policy to the advantage of the western seaboard. How is it suggested that four humble backbenchers could have more success than four Ministers, who sit round the Government table——

There were five.

That even fortifies my argument—five Ministers from the west of Ireland. How could four backbenchers succeed where five Ministers have so radically failed?

There have been remarks regarding the duties of effective Deputies and arguments have been advanced that we must reduce the number of large seat constituencies to three or four member constituencies. In the earlier days of the State we had constituencies comprised of seven to nine members where proportional representation operated to its logical conclusion. In those days doubtless those Deputies had grave problems to resolve on behalf of the electorate. They did not have the emoluments which Deputies have today and I certainly do not sympathise with a Deputy elected today in a five-seat constituency from the point of view of the amount of travelling his work entails. He is well compensated for any additional work he may have to perform. A system has grown up in recent years that has seriously aggravated the amount of unnecessary work Deputies have to perform; a type of messenger boy work, Deputies sending letters to ordinary applicants for a simple grant and replies from Ministers where the Deputies never at any time made representation on behalf of those persons. When that is so, how can a Deputy complain about the volume of work he has to perform in a multiseat constituency? Undoubtedly, the vast majority of constituencies are reduced in this Bill to three-seat and four-seat constituencies. The three-seat constituencies are those where the Government Party hope to secure two out of the three seats with 50 per cent of the votes. The four-seat constituencies are those where they have no hope of obtaining that number of votes, where they hope with 38 per cent to obtain two out of four. This is gross gerrymandering. I am amazed that the Minister presenting this Bill should be the same Minister who held this House up for some 6½ hours——

——seven hours with arguments that were rejected completely by very many members of his own Party.

They were not.

They must have been. The vast majority secured in the referendum guarantees that very many supporters of the Government Party voted against the submission of the Government.

The Senator said "members".

A Minister who had wasted 18 months of the time of Ministers who should have been engaged otherwise and had wasted the people's money on this fruitless exercise would not have been retained in office by any government or head of government in Europe or in any western democracy. They would not retain any Minister who had been responsible for such waste of time as this Minister. Were it not for the innate good commonsense of the Irish people it would not be on record that it was the most fatal political blunder since this State was established to have embarked on that exercise. Every argument advanced in the course of that long drawn out debate was blown sky-high by the democratic decision of the electors, who made good use of the polling booths.

I want to refer particularly to one argument advanced at that time as it has a bearing on the discussion of this Bill, that is, the argument as to the advantage of the three- and four-member constituencies vis-à-vis five-seat constituencies. The Minister spent hour after hour in this House and in the other House and indeed throughout the country where he worked prodigiously in his effort but it was the greatest waste of time, effort and money since the State was established. The argument was made then that there would be a proliferation of Parties if there were multi-seat constituencies.

There was recently a general election in Northern Ireland under the system which we were told would lead to a reduction in the number of Parties contesting seats and we have seen what happened there. Despite the fact that they were reduced to as low as single-seat constituencies there was a proliferation of Parties to the point that the people must have been completely confused as to where they stood relative to the policies of the people whose names appeared on the ballot paper. The electorate were given no opportunity of exercising a preference other than for a single person under the various details presented to them on the ballot paper in the Northern Ireland election. This completely wipes out the argument advanced that the larger the number of seats in a constituency the more likely it is that there will be a proliferation of Parties, in our case, in the Dáil. That argument is thrown overboard by what has happened in Northern Ireland.

I should like the Minister when he is replying to speak about the loss of contact between a Deputy and his electorate. In a constituency extending over a wide area, how he can correlate that with the present decision of his colleague, the Minister for Health, to rationalise the health services, I do not know. His colleague has made a decision to abolish health, to remove it from the control of county councils and to create new authorities for vast regions comparable, practically, to a province or a vast area in relation to local authorities.

There is no comparison.

Of course there is.

There is not. This is dealing with health and there are thousands of doctors to deal with this.

Is the Senator in favour of the complete abolition of representation of the elected representatives in that field?

That has nothing to do with this.

It has. There was a seminar on this subject as recently as last week and we are fully aware of what this entails. I am bringing it up as a comparison between what is happening in one Department and what is happening in this Bill relative to another Department. By increasing the number of three- or four-seat constituencies relative to the whole country, the Minister and the Government are attempting to divide the electorate who so recently gave their opinions in relation to the electoral system.

I want to come back to the point made by Senator Nash regarding the unfairness of determining a constituency on the basis of population, that you have to take into account people who are resident in hospitals, in county homes, and so on, people who are temporary residents. The Senator must know there is a qualifying date, that the 15th September every year is the date on which the authorities responsible for the compilation of the register are obliged to record for registration purposes those who are normally resident in an are at that time. It is alleged that this is unfair to a certain extent.

We tabled an amendment in this House to the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill to overcome the weaknes which Senator Nash points out was in the 1937 Constitution. That amendment was designed to substitute the electorate for the population as the basis of determining constituencies. The record shows voting against that proposal in the division Senator John Joseph Nash who has made the argument here in support of the point of view that we put forword in a reasoned amendment in the Seanad on 23rd July, 1968.

If you supported that Bill that amendment would have been carried.

We were endeavouring, as was our obligation in Opposition, to improve the Bill that was put before us at that time. We suggested this inclusion to overcome what then existed and what has existed since the foundation of the State. However, that was defeated by a majority of 23 votes to 13.

One would not think that it would be logical on the part of anybody who voted against that amendment to complain now because the constituencies must be based on population rather than on the number of electors.

Many Member of the House have appealed for the establishment of a non-Party commission to determine constituency boundaries. I would ask Senator Ó Donnabháin to explain to me and to the House why it was considered suitable to have a commission to define the constituency boundries with relation to one type of constituency. This was a Government submission and it emerged from the constructive discussions that went on around the table when the all-Party committee met to consider electoral reforms but there is no doubt that any givernment, no matter which Party, that would be charged with the definition of constituency boundaries would be open to the allegation of gerrymandering. If, then, such a commission existed it would satisfy the people that not only was justice done but that it was seen to be done. Far from justice being seen to be done, not only was injustice done but appears quite clearly to be done.

It has been suggested that the loss of seats in the west of Ireland has been caused because of the rejection by the people of the tolerance provision of the proposed constitutional amendment. This, of course, is fallacious because there was never a reference to or an inclusion in the Referendum Bill of the tolerance being applicable to the west of Ireland. The extention of tolerance would have meant that a better gerrymander could have been done in Cork city, in Dublin city or in any other part of Ireland.

However, the people rejected that proposal because, perhaps, it was not indicated to them that it was anything other that what it was designed to be. I do not intend at this stage to go into detail regarding the type, shape or size of constituencies as presented to us in the Bill. We shall have another opportunity of going into more detail in that respect.

In so far as the constituency where I am now obliged to register as an elector is concerned—South-West Cork—I do not regard this as an undesirable creation. It is almost as analogous to Cork as Chile is to the continent of south America. At one time, it included Bandon and Kinsale. Fianna Fáil have written off the good, solid and honest people of west Cork who have never given them more than one out of three seats and who never will give them more.

Regarding the centre if the county, mid-Cork, they have taken one crooked leg which runs down to Bantry Bay to link up with Guilfoyle and they have put another leg into Rathluirc on the Limerick border to link up with the Golden Vale. There was a time when Cork county was divided into four three-seat constituencies. These constituencies were reasonably sized but for political reasons it was thought that by increasing their size, certain political gains could be obtained. However, they did not materialise and that idea has been abandoned now. The five-seater in North-East Cork, Fianna Fáil having failed to gain three seats out of the five, has now been reduced to a four-seater and the remainder of the county comprises three-seat constituencies, and the representation of Cork City, which was a five-seater, has been increased to six in two three-seat constituencies. This is a deliberate effort to make it difficult for the numerically smaller of the three political Parties in existence in Leinster House.

I thought we were wiped out. I thought we were finished.

I know you were wiped out in the referendum. The Leader of the House has merely confirmed my views and the views of everybody in that respect. That was a great waste of time, effort and money, the worst that the country has ever known and the greatest political blunder any Party ever made. It was the greatest misjudgment of public opinion, and the editorials were quite right in commenting that if a Minister or Government or Taoiseach is so remote from public opinion even in their own Party, how wrong are they and how remote are they from the feelings of the people in regard to the economic and other aspects of the national life as well? That is a logical and reasonable argument.

I would conclude by saying that there has not been even a sense of chivalry indicated by these proposals because the female sex represents the majority of the electorate and there is frequent complaints that there are not enough lady Members in Dáil Éireann. Lady Members on both sides seem to have come in for particularly unfavourable attention having regard to the effect on their constituencies of this measure.

This is a Bill designed to abate the wishes expressed and recorded by the Irish people within very recent times. It is a measure which I feel will not have the desired effect although we are aware of the intention. I do not think it will in any way minimise the recorded displeasure of the people with the Party in office. I do not think that any manoeuvring or gerrymandering that is implicit in this Bill will effect the return of that Party to power. I happened to be engaged in open debate. I was very glad to have an opportunity, having failed in repeated efforts to get open forums where we could debate the system of elections with representatives of the Government Party. But I did happen to obtain an opportunity, of an open forum on one occasion and on that occasion the Government representative opened for his side by saying that irrespective of the constituency revision unless the electoral system was changed his Party could not assume re-election.

He was not feeling too well that day.

Many people opposite me were not feeling too well at that particular time, because it was quite obvious that he was at a loss for an argument.

He was depressed — toothache or something. He could not have said that and believed it.

It was very apparent that very many people believed it. At any rate I consider that this Bill is unjust inasmuch as it is a blatant effort to gerrymander. Even looking at efforts made in the past this appears to be one of the worst. There is no point in saying that there is an obligation on the Minister to bring in a measure precisely as he has done in consequence of the declared will of the people, because this is an effort to reduce the expressed desire of the people for the retention of PR as a fair and equitable system of election, and the reduction in the number of high-seat constituencies is designed to that effect. Deputies are very well rewarded now and it makes it easier for them to employ secretarial assistance to cater for more constituents. They would be all the better Deputies for having a wider area of representation and a wider section of our people to meet, and that reduction in the constituencies in the west particularly was an obvious effort to get away from what were certain embarrassments caused in the ranks of the Government Party and between Ministers when lines were drawn specifically to suit them. We also note that since the Bill was presented in the Dáil backbench Deputies of the Government Party have had their influence in certain minor adjustments to suit their own needs. We do not hope in this House to have much effect in improving this measure, but we can avail of the responsibility imposed on us to expose what is in this measure and what it is intended to do though we feel confident that it will not succeed.

The exposition of the last speaker has compelled me to spend ten minutes in discussion of this project. I am never long-spoken or too loud-spoken, the only occasion being on an intervention possibly in a debate, but in this case I have been literally appalled to think that in a vocational body we have such slander and such a vicious attack on the Party who constitute the Government. No wonder that young people are being misled when they hear all the abuse of the Minister and the Government, who are accused of doing everything wrong for selfish purposes. One word that distinctly antagonises me is this word gerrymandering. I have seen on television the Leader of Fine Gael who has pronounced in favour of the single-seat constituency and the single vote speak of gerrymandering. Then the Government in their wish to satisfy the community generally in the referendum proposed specifically to put it to a judge of the High court to define the constituencies in collaboration with representatives of the Parties in the Dáil. How could the Leader of the Fine Gael Party say on television that the object was to gerrymander when he himself is in favour of the single-seat constituency and has never denied that? I spoke here when the Government brought in the Bill to give the community an opportunity of amending the system of election to Dáil Éireann, not Seanad Éireann, and I congratulated the Government on bringing in that Bill. I spoke in favour of the Bill and pointed out that Fine Gael would never beat Fianna Fáil on proportional representation and what an opportunity they would have under the single-seat system. I still maintain that they were very foolish in recommending the people to reject the referendum proposal.

Beware of the Greeks bearing gifts.

Then they come along clamouring about gerrymandering though it was provided to have a judge of the High Court or the Supreme Court in collaboration with representatives of the Dáil to define the single-member constituencies. The result then was that in compliance with the decision of the court the Government and the Minister were faced with the obligation to amend the constituencies under the proportional representation system for the whole country, and of course the Minister is abused and this is called gerrymandering. I hate this word. It was false on the question of the referendum and it is just as false today. There have been five-member constituencies in the country and nobody protested about gerrymandering. When the Government cut them down to four-seat constituencies the only thing that the Opposition could say on this question was to accuse them of gerrymandering though they were trying to accommodate public opinion on the question. Gerrymandering should never have been referred to on the Referendum Bill when the recommendation was to have single-member seats, and yet you have the Leader of the Fine Gael Party saying that it was gerrymandering. It just shows the level to which Members of the Opposition in this House and in the other House have descended when they come in here again in a vocational body and resist this with the argument about gerrymandering. For the Leader of that Party to come back and say he objected to the gerrymandering content of this Bill just shows the extent to which Members of the Opposition in both Houses have descended. I am a Member of this House as a vocational nominee. Of necessity, we all have political opinions in Seanad Éireann but I object to any Opposition who will descend as low as Senator Quinlan in abusing the Government and the Minster for Local Government for doing everything wrong, when, in fact, all they have to do is look back at the Fine Gael Government and take heart.

I do not think Senator Quinlan spoke in a low way at all.

Anybody who was listening to Senator Quinlan would appreciate the level of his contribution.

One thing which irritates people is talk about gerrymandering and changing of county boundaries. I have considerable experience in the drawing up of electoral lists. They are complied and published by the local authority. When dividing counties such as Leitrim — which it has become necessary to do — I always anticipate difficulties in producing a satisfactory register of electorate because there is no actual representative for County Leitrim. The local authority has an obligation to compile and produce a register of electors.

Senator O'Sullivan referred to the difficulties he had in connection with the adoption of an amendment to have representation on the basis of electorate rather than population. Population is known, whereas the electoral list — as anybody who has any experience of it knows—is inaccurate because it is complied from a census of people in residence on a particular night. Subsequently, when an election comes along people who are registered as electors are not electors at all. I would be against any system of electing representatives to the Houses of the Oireachtas based on the electoral list rather than on population, although it would be much easier to submit figures showing exactly what is what. The result would be an administrative figure as to the representatives in the Oireachtas relative to the electoral list of various counties and various sections.

County Leitrim is now in three sections. It is a very different constituency from that arrived at when compilation of the electoral list is an obligation of the county council who will have to divide townlands. Leitrim would be asked to pay for producing such a register and, as the other county councils cannot compile a register for the three sections of County Leitrim, electoral lists in the future will be very difficult.

I resent the accusation of gerrymandering and the suggestion that Fianna Fáil are an outrageous omnipotent Government who do nothing in the interests of the people. The people who make those accusations now are the same people who sold out in 1921 in the Treaty and in 1925. It is only a pity that the people did not accept the Government's Proposals last year.

The Constitution was wrong.

We asked the people to decide and I am certain that if they had not heard the accusations they would not have voted as they did. I am disgusted with the anti-Government debate — the Dáil is the place it, but one does not expect to hear such violent accusations here.

I can speak as one who has no aspirations towards election to the Dáil. I, therefore, would like to think I could comment objectively at least, and without any bias, on what this Bill proposes to do. It is fairly evident that the Bill is wide open to, and does, in fact, invite certainly criticism if not suspicion and even I find myself asking what precisely is the Bill designed to do? I find this Bill is quite deliberately designed as an effort to undo some of the harm that was done to the Government image by the people's rejection of the last proposal to abolish PR. As I say, this Bill is designed precisely to achieve some good from the result of that vote. I will not repeat or attempt to go over some of the things which the other speakers have alluded to but I think enough has been said in this House to satisfy any fairminded person that the Bill is not an honest measure to give the people the pattern or system of election to which they obviously aspired when they went into the ballot boxes only a matter of a few months ago.

I am particularly opposed to this Bill for those reasons. I and the other members of the Labour Party in this House would be lacking in our duty if we did not place the objections which we found to parts of it on the record. We have heard the Bill described as an effort to gerrymander. This is not, of course, the first time that the sitting Government of the day have endeavoured to ensure their continuance in existence as a Government by measures of this kind.

You are gerrymandering again.

It is you who are doing it.

That is a word which has been used here very frequently in the past. I do not see any difference between this Bill and some of those Bills which have been an attempt at gerrymandering. It is clear to my mind, at least, that the Government have not yet learned the full lesson from the last referendum. If it is their intention to come back to this House with measures of this kind I do not think it will serve either the Government or the country.

It certainly will not do the country or the Government any good of the Government have to be told repeatedly, as we are obliged to tell them on this measure once again, that they are not playing the game. They are not playing the game with the electorate. They are not playing the game with any of the sections of political opinion in this country. As I said, I do not wish to descend to any of the charges that could be regarded as perhaps in some sense unwarranted by some people, such as my friend Senator Ó Donnabháin, but I want to repeat that in the opinion of the Labour Party and in the opinion of every member of the Labour Party in this House, it is very evident that this is an attempt to put forward what was rejected by the people in the referendum. We believe it to be another effort so to arrange the constituencies that the Fianna Fáil Party and their hold on the people of this county will continue.

It is for those reasons that we are obviously opposed to this Bill as we would likewise be opposed to any measure of a similar kind that they would introduce. Therefore, I, in common with my colleagues in the Labour Party, intend to oppose the passage of this Bill through all Stages in this House. We believe the Government would be doing a better job for the country if they went back and took serious and objective notice at least of what they were told in the ballot boxes in the recent referendum. They have not done so and they have failed to do so in this Bill. That is the reason why I and my fellow members of the Labour Party are opposed to it and will continue to be opposed to it.

In deference to my friend, Senator Ó Donnabháin, I will not refer to this as gerrymandering, it is Kevinmandering.

That is more ignorance coming from the Senator.

What we are engaged in here is redrawing the constituencies for election to Dáil Éreann. Understandably, we have not the same detailed interest in the size or the lines of constituencies as would Members of Dáil Éireann but still we are part of the Oireachtas. We are one of the Houses in a parliamentary democracy. Our objection to the proposal to abolish PR was that whilst it would not necessarily result in a dictatorship it would be a step back from the type of parliamentary democracy we had managed to establish in this country and of which, I think, we could all be proud no matter from what Party we come. I have always thought that as a new State emering from centuries of domination and occupation by a foreign power, we have shown the world how we could reasonably govern ourselves. That was, perhaps, the biggest thing we had to teach ourselves and the British after we got the measure of freedom we have — at least, I should say, the previous generation, including myself, had got it. What we had to prove was that we were capable of governing themselves.

That may seem a very small thing but if we look at the experience of many newly emergent nations since we got our freedom we will realise it was no mean achievement itself. It is something we have taken for granted but I have always thought it is something of which we as a nation can be proud. We managed to do that after, as I say, centuries of occupation and after our people had been conditioned and persuaded, not all of them, but many of them, that we were incapable, because of some fault in our make-up, of governing ourselves. We did this under the system of election known as proportional representation.

Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30. a.m. on Thursday, 6th March, 1969.
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