Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Apr 1974

Vol. 77 No. 11

Electoral (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1973: Committee Stage.

An Cathaoirleach

When suggesting changes in the boundaries of a particular constituency under consideration Members will be allowed to deal with changes in other constituencies with which the constituency under consideration forms a group. This is in accordance with the ordinary rules of debate. I suggest that the amendments be divided into the following groups for the purpose of debate:

Group A—amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21. This group relates to the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny, the various constituencies of Dublin city and county and the constituencies of Kildare and Wicklow.

Group B—amendments Nos. 2, 12 and 15. This group relates to the constituencies of Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Meath.

Group C—amendments Nos. 3, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16 and 18. This group relates to the constituencies of Clare, East Galway, West Galway, East Mayo, West Mayo, Roscommon-Leitrim and Sligo-Leitrim. Amendment No. 17 also relates to the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim but the change it proposes affects the constituency of Donegal and is not related to the other amendments. It should, therefore, be discussed separately.

Group D—amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6. This group relates to the constituencies of Cork city, Mid-Cork and North-East Cork.

Group E—amendments Nos. 19 and 20. Both amendments relate to the constituency of North Tipperary.

In the case of each of these groups one decision should suffice to dispose of the amendments within the group. I understand it has been agreed to postpone sections 3, 4 and 5 of the Bill until after consideration of the Schedule.

Agreed and ordered accordingly.

Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.

An Cathaoirleach

As the agreement was to postpone sections 3, 4 and 5, it would be proper to take the remaining sections.

Sections 6 to 9, inclusive, agreed to.

SCHEDULE

An Cathaoirleach

The House has agreed to take amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21 together. It will be a common debate and a single decision.

Mr. Lenihan

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 4, in the second column of the entry relating to the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny, to delete all words after "divisions of:" and substitute the following:

"Moyacomb, Newtownbarry, St. Mary's in the former Rural District of Enniscorthy;

and in the administrative county of Wicklow the district electoral divisions of Cronelea, Coolboy, Coolattin, Shillelagh, Aghowle, Killinure, Rath, Money, Carnew, Ballingate in the former Rural District of Shillelagh”.

We on this side have agreed to facilitate the House in regard to this debate as it is important to get down to the meat of what is involved in this Bill. It is pertinent to state here that the other House, due to the highly undemocratic attitude adopted on behalf of the Government, were unable to get down to the important areas of discussion in this legislation. Due to the totalitarian attitude on the part of the Government what is popularly known as a "guillotine" motion was introduced at a stage which prevented the other House from engaging in a rational discussion about what really matters in this Bill. The discussion on the basic gerrymandering of the constituencies was limited to only a few hours.

On this occasion we welcome the approach which has enabled the sections of the Bill which are not important from this point of view to be passed so that we can have a rational discussion on what is involved here. This is basically contained in the Schedule to the Bill and to a lesser degree in the sections we will be taking after the Schedule, sections 3, 4 and 5. A deliberate effort is being made here to ensure, irrespective of the will of the people or of what public expression of lack of confidence in the present Government exists that, so far as it is possible to stretch boundaries and constituency arrangements within the limits of what can be done under the Constitution, this Government will stay in office.

An Cathaoirleach

It would be better if the Senator directed his remarks in particular towards the group of constituencies now under discussion.

Mr. Lenihan

I intend to do that. The first group under discussion is the outstanding example of the attitude of mind of which I have just been speaking. This attitude is amply reflected in the group of amendments which we are now discussing. In the first group of amendments we seek to rectify a reorganisation of the constituencies which the Government think will be of benefit and which I am certain will be frustrated in due course, despite the attempt to twist public opinion into gerrymandered lines.

There is, first, the amendment which relates to the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny in which we propose "to delete all the words after ‘divisions of' and substitute the following...". We specify them—they are townlands in the former rural district of Enniscorthy—and we also seek to ensure that in the administrative county of Wicklow, in the electoral divisions in the former rural district of Shillelagh, the following townlands be included. What is involved here must be taken in conjunction with Nos. 7, 8, 11 and 21. Amendment No. 7 brings us into the Dublin and the Greater Dublin constituencies. No. 8 refers to the same area. No. 11 is concerned with counties Kildare and Meath, and No. 21 is concerned with Carlow-Kilkenny again.

What we are seeking to do in this group of amendments is obviate—again I am going back to what I said before —the thinking involved, which we deplore, in breaching county boundaries right, left and centre in the eastern part of Ireland, in the greater metropolitan area and in the counties adjacent to Dublin and Greater Dublin, in order to achieve a situation of the maximum weighting of seats in that area in what the Government think is their interest on the basis that Labour and Fine Gael will extract a maximum number of seats from that area sufficient to outweigh the rest of the country.

I think this effort will fail, but this is the thinking behind it. It is the thinking reflected in the parts of the Schedule relating to Carlow-Kilkenny that we are now discussing. We must look specifically on how that thinking is reflected in the constituencies involved. The first approach, obviously, must be to work outwards in order to see the enormity of the thinking from what is involved in 7 and 8, that is, Dublin and Greater Dublin. We work outwards from there into Meath, Kildare, Carlow-Kilkenny and Wicklow and see precisely what is involved. We are discussing here the principle whereby willy nilly a positive decision was made to carve up Dublin city and Greater Dublin into three-seat constituencies. What we are discussing now flows from that decision. That basic decision on the part of the Government is very pertinent to discussion on this group of amendments.

With regard to that decision we have a situation where in the area of the country with the greatest population a decision has been made by the Government to frustrate to the maximum degree possible proportionality in regard to elections. We have here a scheme that is the essence of hypocrisy having regard to the fact that the two constituent parties in the present Government fought for the retention of proportional representation and are now concerned about introducing into Dublin city and county a system that is anti-proportional representation. They are now going, as far as they can within the Constitution, to introduce a principle of voting that is as anti-proportional representation as it is constitutionally possible to make it, having regard to the decision already expressed by the people on two occasions. The present Government are running totally counter to the whole spirit of the people's decisions. They are not accepting the people's decisions in regard to the two referenda concerned and are concerned solely with maximising what they think will be their advantage by establishing the greatest number of three-seat constituencies ever under our system of electoral legislation and having them in Dublin city and county in particular where they feel there will be an immediate political advantage.

I want to warn the Government that this political advantage will not accrue to them because our political organisation is sufficiently resilient to resist it and to ensure that two seats out of three may fall in some other direction. It shows the futility of the efforts of a Government that at one stage took up many hours of debate in Dáil Éireann seeking to establish an impartial commission, judicial or quasi-judicial, to ensure that constituency boundaries would be properly redressed. This obviously is not the intention. We have sought to ensure in our amendments Nos. 7 and 8 that there be a balanced distribution of constituencies in regard to size in the Dublin city and county areas. I refer to amendments Nos. 7 and 8 in this context where we seek to achieve— without going into the legal terminology or wording of the amendments —a three-seat constituency in South West County Dublin, in North County Dublin a five-seat constituency, in South County Dublin a four-seat constituency and in Dún Laoghaire a five-seat constituency. Linked with that we seek to make Dublin North Central a three-seat constituency, Dublin North East a three-seat constituency, Dublin (Artane) a three-seat constituency, Dublin (Finglas) a three-seat constituency, Dublin (Cabra) a three-seat constituency, Dublin South Central a three-seat constituency, Dublin South East a three-seat constituency and Dublin (Rathmines West) a three-seat constituency.

We have left the Minister with a reasonable number of three-seat constituencies in our amendment. There is no question of a crude, blanket, overall, Fascist, gerrymandering approach in regard to our amendments. We have had regard to the existing constituency boundaries. We have had regard to the traditional loyalties of areas and we have a reasonable mixture of three-, five-and four-seat constituencies in them. We have left the Minister a fair degree—a very large degree I might say—of his desired three-seat constituencies, but we have balanced the mixture by recognising that the borough of Dún Laoghaire and the adjacent areas to it in County Dublin, such as Stillorgan, Ballybrack and Dundrum, merit a five-seat constituency. We have decided that there should be a five-seat constituency there—not just a four-seat constituency to preserve the Taoiseach and whoever is along with him—that will give reasonable balance of representation having regard to the fact that Dún Laoghaire is the natural centre for the electoral divisions adjacent to Dún Laoghaire, such as Stillorgan and Dundrum.

Similarly in South County Dublin we have a natural four-seat constituency that does not breach any county boundaries whatever. It is based on very adjacent electoral divisions with which the House must be familiar: Ballybrack, Dundrum, Milltown, Rathfarnham, Terenure and so on. That is the natural South County Dublin area that merits four seats on its own within the county boundary of South County Dublin, outside Dún Laoghaire. In North County Dublin we have again taken a natural area that runs, looking at it geographically, to North County Dublin. North of a line from Palmerstown to Lucan to Balbriggan you have natural North County Dublin almost on the line of the River Liffey itself. There you have the natural division proposed in our amendment for a five-seat constituency running north of the River Liffey and including the administrative county of Dublin and all the areas within it north of the Liffey line.

Outside these three natural constituency areas, that on any argument of logic cry out to be constructed as we have suggested, we have said "yes" to the Minister. He can have, with minor adjustments which we have suggested which are related to areas, his three-seater constituencies. This is where the logic and the reason come in. In particular I should like the Press to appreciate this because there is no need to gerrymander Dublin city and county artificially into three-seat constituencies by bringing in parts of Wicklow and Kildare and having Meath and Carlow-Kilkenny constituencies readjusted on that account.

Under this group of amendments we seek to say that what has been done in regard to the constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny, what has been done in regard to the counties of Wexford and Wicklow, what has been done by the Minister in regard to the counties of Kildare and Meath—all of these breaches of county boundaries that have been deliberately foisted upon us in this legislation are totally unnecessary. The Minister and the Government are pursuing with bulldog intensity the narrow objective of securing three-seat constituencies in Dublin and greater Dublin, with the notorious exception of the Taoiseach's constituency, because here it was desired to continue to protect him in a four-seat constituency. The whole scheme we are discussing under this group of amendments comes down to this centre of principle: the Minister could have—he would not require a judicial commission for this at all, although I am certain this is what a judicial commission would have done —organised a scheme of division of constituencies that would have provided three-seat constituencies in the central Dublin area. We have suggested adjustments to that. A reasonable scheme of three-seat constituencies in the central Dublin area, allied to a scheme in Dún Laoghaire, South County Dublin, and North County Dublin, would have resulted in a five-seat constituency in Dún Laoghaire, a four-seat constituency in South County Dublin, a five-seat constituency in North County Dublin. We acknowledge by our amendments that three-seat constituencies may be appropriate in the central Dublin area. I shall not enter into any argument with the Minister on the variations we have proposed for the centre of Dublin in our amendments as against the Minister's amendments because these variations are consequential on our essential difference of principle concerning how he has dealt with Dún Laoghaire and outer Dublin and the counties adjacent to it.

Fundamentally we acknowledge the fact that the Minister sought to make three-seat constituencies in the centre of Dublin. That may be rational provided there is adjacent to Dublin no outrageous breach of county boundaries or of traditional associations and loyalties in regard to geographical areas—that there is not associated with having a reasonable number of three-seat constituencies a blatant gerrymandering approach. It surely is the essence of crudeness to make the decision to have three-seat constituencies in Dublin city and county and have the notorious exception of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. In the exercise of that arbitrary power of delineating the constituencies in Dublin city and county, all county boundaries adjacent to Dublin city and county, all loyalties and associations within County Dublin, go by the board and are chopped in a merciless manner purely in the interest of having a crude black and white arrangement of Dublin city and county in three-seat constituencies.

When our amendments are examined in this rational way it can be appreciated how sensible they are. We have agreed to nine three-seat constituencies in Dublin city and county out of the 12. We are agreed that the Minister and the Government may require three-seat constituencies, but that should not be pushed to the extent of flouting county boundaries, flouting peoples' loyalties and traditional associations, or to the extent that natural areas that justify four- and five-seat constituencies should be artificially and arbitrarily carved up. In the process of ensuring three-seat constituencies in Dún Laoghaire and County Dublin areas of North Kildare and Wicklow are added in. There are further complications in the constituencies of Carlow-Kilkenny and Meath and Kildare. Here, quite unnecessarily, county boundaries are breached. The whole essence of the judgment in the action brought by a former colleague of ours, John O'Donovan, in regard to the Constituencies Bill, which was upheld by Judge Budd, was that he found that county boundaries were by no means sacrosanct and that they would have to be breached in order to accord with the constitutional limits in regard to population. If the Minister reads that judgment, he will realise that, where it is necessary, county boundaries may be breached in order that the constitutional limits shall be recognised and accorded value.

But here was a situation where there was no need to breach the county boundaries. The whole essence of the Budd decision—the whole spirit of it—is flouted by the present measure. What we are seeking to point out in these amendments is that there was no necessity to breach county boundaries. What Mr. Justice Budd said was that county boundaries were not sacrosanct. Where it was not possible—I am being very careful about this—to work within the limits of the Constitution, or a reasonable tolerance of 20,000, county boundaries could be breached. We are seeking to point out that the Minister could have achieved his objective of retaining the county boundaries of Dublin county. He could have retained the county boundaries of Wicklow, Carlow-Kilkenny and Kildare. At the same time he could have had a high proportion of the three-seat constituencies which the Government are obviously seeking.

I want to emphasise that point. There is nothing whatever here inconsistent with attaining the two objectives. The Minister could have got nine seats out of 12 in Dublin city and county on a three-seat basis. He could have had North County Dublin as a five-seater north of the Liffey, South County Dublin as a four-seater, Dún Laoghaire as a five-seater and there would have been no need to breach the county boundary of County Wicklow with the consequential effect of breaching the county boundary of Carlow-Kilkenny. He would have had no need to breach the county of Kildare or to have breached the boundaries of counties in the immediate vicinity of Dublin city and county.

If I were making this submission before any judicial commission or tribunal, it would be an unanswerable submission. It is a highly reasonable submission and we are not engaged here on any filibuster. I want to emphasise this. This is why we decided to cut out any nonsense in regard to arguing about nothing in respect of other sections. We decided to get down to business. This is a group of very practical amendments to show how the Minister, while giving Dublin city and county its full representation, could by acting in a reasonable manner have at the same time the three-seat constituencies which he so obviously desires, without having the crude black-and-white imposition of three-seat constituencies, irrespective of the effect.

The Minister is acting in a quasi-judicial position in a matter of this kind. He is at least expected to act in that manner. The case is inescapable and irrefutable that he could have acted in a reasonable and quasi-judicial manner and acted with good sense in accordance with his mandate from the Irish people by incorporating in County Dublin the constituencies which we have set down here in our amendments—North County Dublin as a five-seater, South County Dublin as a four-seater and Dún Laoghaire as a five-seater. The effect of that would then be as outlined in our amendment No. 1 in regard to Carlow-Kilkenny. I have dealt already with our amendments Nos. 7 and 8. Our amendment No. 11, again consequential on the point of principle that I have been expressing, would have not necessitated any breach of the county of Kildare.

Amendment No. 21 is related to amendment No. 1. It concerns the relationship between Carlow, Kilkenny and Wicklow. County Wexford is involved in that also. There has been a carving out of North County Wicklow to sustain artificially a constituency in South County Dublin. From the town of Bray right into the environs of Bray, an area has been carved out and put into South County Dublin to justify the Minister's mad mania for three-seat constituencies that are unnecessary and superfluous. Thereby there is a breaching of County Wicklow that results in the subsequent breaching of boundaries in Wexford and Carlow-Kilkenny. Similarly the same kind of totally crude hatchet-like job has resulted in part of Kildare being dragged into County Dublin in order again to satisfy the Minister's mania for another three-seat constituency in County Dublin.

Amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21 are designed to ensure that we maintain the county boundaries, the existing constituency arrangements, the traditional associations and loyalties of people in their areas, in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford. It is a pity that the Minister has adopted this approach because it is setting a bad precedent. He could have achieved a reasonable objective of having nine three-seat constituencies in this area by having, as we suggested, the two five-seater and the four-seater constituencies that we have incorporated in amendment No. 7. By adopting this approach he would have avoided bringing Celbridge, Maynooth and Leixlip into County Dublin. He would have avoided bringing a segment of the town of Bray and its suburbs into another County Dublin constituency.

These amendments are not ill-conceived amendments in any way. We have spent much time in preparing them and have given much attention to them in order to adopt a reasonable approach in this House. I would hope that this House continues its tradition of adopting a reasonable approach towards amendments tabled. We have shown a very balanced attitude in not seeking to bring in amendments that would follow the Minister's crude approach, amendments merely of rejection. What we have brought in are amendments designed constructively to ensure that the county boundaries are respected so far as is possible. The whole spirit and meaning of the judgment of Mr. Justice Budd was that you simply do not break county boundaries for the sake of following a preconceived notion about the number of constituencies. If it is the objective of the Government to have as many three-seat constituencies as possible in Dublin and Greater Dublin, fair enough. But you do not pursue that objective in the ruthless quest for power and say that we will have three-seat constituencies and nothing else and that in the pursuance of that we will divide up existing constituencies, carve areas out of counties adjacent to them, all in accordance with the mean principle of achieving power at any cost. What we suggest in these amendments is that by adopting the reasonable approach in regard to Dublin city and county of allowing nine out of 12 three-seat constituencies and having the two-five and the four-seat constituencies, all of this trouble can be avoided and there will be less taste of corruption and chicanery in the public mind and attitude towards politics in this country.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Tully)

First I should like to compliment the House on the decision they took to take what has been described as the meat of the Bill. That is the sensible approach. The other matters were purely matters of procedure. I agree that it was childish and foolish to waste time dealing with them in any other way except in the way in which they have been dealt with here. This is the way I would have wished to have seen the Bill dealt with all along. I am rather surprised that Senator Lenihan seems not to be quite sure of what is happening. One would imagine from what he has said here that there are things happening which in fact are not happening at all. He says, for instance, that the Bill has the highest ever number of three-seaters. The Bill provides for 26 three-seaters. The Act of 1969 provided for 26 three-seaters. I do not think I need go any further on that.

Senator Lenihan speaks about natural constituencies in the Dublin area. I do not know whether he agrees with me but I would not consider it natural to split the new Ballymun complex, for instance, into three constituencies. I put them all into one which I consider to have been much more natural. I also wonder whether Senator Lenihan thinks that it is natural to divide Ballyfermot between the two County Dublin constituencies, which was the situation before this and which is being suggested now. Senator Lenihan also refers to arbitrary decisions to leave a four-seater in Dún Laoghaire. I am sorry to have to go into this. It is perhaps a waste of time but it will not take very long. Having decided the number of seats—43—which were to go to Dublin city and county with a bit of Kildare I divided that by 14. There were 14 three's and one over. I do not think Senator Lenihan was being reasonable when he suggested that it was an effort to save the Taoiseach's seat that we left the extra one in Dún Laoghaire. I will not waste any more time on that.

I am glad Senator Aylward is here because Senator Lenihan talks of breaching boundaries in Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford. The Bill does not make any changes whatever in the constituencies of Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford. If it is horrible for me to do it now, was it not horrible when Senator Lenihan supported it the last time it was done? I do not think it is horrible. I think that the suggestion to leave all of Carlow and Kilkenny as it is, with the exception of that one little place, was reasonable. That was done before and I did not change it.

Senator Lenihan mentioned that it was proposed in the amendment to delete all words after "divisions of" and substitute the following:

"Moyacomb, Newtownbarry, St. Mary's in the former Rural District of Enniscorthy;

and in the administrative county of Wicklow the district electoral divisions of Cronelea, Coolboy, Coollattin, Shillelagh, Aghowle, Killinure, Rath, Money, Carnew, Ballingate in the former Rural District of Shillelagh”.

To suggest that county boundaries must not be breached in any circumstances and then to suggest deliberately that here are additional boundaries which should be breached does not make sense to me. There was an effort at leg-pulling in the speech that was made by Senator Lenihan.

Senator Lenihan tried to imply that the amendments proposed for the Dublin area would do less damage to county boundaries than would the proposals in the Bill. His proposals would breach the boundaries between Meath and Dublin, Kildare and Meath, Wicklow and Carlow-Kilkenny, Wexford and Carlow-Kilkenny and, also, would mean several breaches in the boundary between Dublin city and county. He spoke on numerous occasions about the necessity to avoid breaching county boundaries in the area dealt with by the first group of amendments. If this is so, how does he justify creating a constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny which, according to his amendments, would consist of part of four counties—Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow? We must be reasonable about this. The Bill, as passed by the other House and put before this House, is a reasonable Bill. To say that the proposal of three-seaters for Dublin city is indicative of peculiar thinking and then to suggest eight or nine three-seaters for that area does not make sense to me. If Fianna Fáil do not want three-seaters in Dublin and, consequently, if they had suggested a change I could understand their attitude. But I cannot understand the mentality which suggests that it is wrong to have three-seaters in Dublin and then, immediately afterwards to say that while they do not want three-seaters in Dublin they are prepared to allow eight or nine. This is muddled thinking and it is not fair to the Houses of Parliament to introduce this type of argument which everybody knows, even the person making it, could not possibly stand up to any examination.

Mr. E. Ryan

Unlike the Minister, we are prepared to compromise.

Mr. Tully

Senator Ryan talks of compromise. Why should we compromise when we have something which we consider to be good? Senator Lenihan talks about an effort to cement the Coalition in power and says we are trying to prevent the electorate from making a decision. I have said twice in the other House, and I repeat here, that the next time there is an election the electorate will make a decision on the way things have been done between the time of the last election and the next one. Nobody can alter constituencies in such a way to ensure the return of any Government and nobody knows that better than Fianna Fáil. They did what they could to ensure that but it did not work out as they planned. If the Government do well in their first period in office they should get two out of three, but if they do badly the Opposition will get two out of three. Do not let us continue the rather foolish argument that it is possible to arrange constituencies in such a way that we can prejudge election results. It is not possible to do that.

Mr. Lenihan

I know it is not possible but that is the thinking behind it.

Mr. Tully

I do not know how Senator Lenihan arrives at that conclusion. I have already said on more than one occasion that I do not think that way. I do not believe it is possible and I do not believe it makes any difference. Deputy Noel Lemass was the first to make the comment on a radio programme immediately after the election when wild things were being said by Fianna Fáil, that he considered that three-seaters were the best for Dublin city because that situation would mean a better possibility of a change of Government if a change of Government was needed. I agree with him on that, but it is not because he suggested it that I decided there would be three-seaters in Dublin. It just gives the lie to the idea which some of the Senator's own party have on this aspect of the Bill.

It is wrong to try to suggest that we have been twisting this around and that we are creating extremely difficult constituencies. The fact that under the Local Elections Bill the five seater local electoral area can in most cases fit almost exactly over the three-seat constituencies which have been created by this Bill is proof that the constituencies we are creating are good. This, perhaps, is not entirely accidental but it is almost accidental, and I think it is a good thing. We have got the same set of public representatives in most cases representing the Dáil and the Corporation.

There are a number of matters to which Senator Lenihan referred which will be dealt with in further amendments and I will leave this particular portion at that.

Mr. Yeats

The Minister, perhaps not for the first time, has been acting a part at which he is quite expert but which does not really suit him— that of the political innocent. He is attempting to convey the impression that it is just the way the chips fell, that the whole of Dublin city and county, with the solitary exception of Dún Laoghaire, divided neatly into three seats, that this had nothing to do with politics, that it was just the way things happened. He quoted Deputy Noel Lemass as having said on radio or television some time ago that three-seaters were a good thing because they enabled the Government to obtain a majority at a general election.

If only Dublin were involved, however much one might suspect the Minister's motives, at least he would have an arguable case for his general proposition. But the difficulty is that he has not at all adopted a general policy of bringing in three-seaters. He has divided, except for Dún Laoghaire, the whole Dublin area into three-seaters, with the addition of considerable chunks of Kildare and Wicklow. But we find that outside Dublin in the rest of the country where under the previous Bill there were 25 three-seaters there are now only 13. In other words, the Minister has brought in a very large number of new three-seat constituencies in Dublin but he has eliminated half of the three-seat constituencies in the rest of the country. The Minister cannot have it both ways. If he says he believes three-seaters are good because they enable a Government to get a majority, then why has he brought about this very radical change in the situation in the rest of the country, halving the number of three-seat constituencies? Why did he not leave three-seat constituencies in the only other large urban area in the country, Cork city?

The Minister's interest in three-seaters is purely selective. He has eliminated most of the three-seaters in the rest of the country—half of them at any rate—and the ones he has left are in general areas where the Coalition are strong. The Minister has brought in this very large number of three-seaters in Dublin quite clearly in the hope—and it is a hope in which he is mistaken—that the Coalition will be able to get two seats out of three in each of the Dublin areas and of course in particular that his own minority party will be able with perhaps 22 to 25 per cent of the vote to get one-third of the seats in Dublin city. The Minister is wrong in this, and our confidence that he is wrong in this is one of the reasons why we in our amendment propose that there should be eight three-seaters in Dublin city while varying the number in the county area outside Dublin in order to make it more geographically reasonable. Because of our confidence that he is wrong in this we did this, but nonetheless the aim behind this was a clear, unadulterated effort to damage Fianna Fáil politically. This was shown particularly in the Dún Laoghaire situation.

Now here again, as indeed, last week the Minister has said: "Well, after all there was one seat left over and it had to go to Dún Laoghaire." It did not have to go to Dún Laoghaire. Dún Laoghaire could perfectly well have been made a three-seater and the extra seat put somewhere else. Dublin city and county could have been given 42 seats and some of Kildare and Wicklow could have been left outside Dublin instead of being brought in. It cannot be considered a coincidence that the one area in the whole of Dublin city and county that is left a four-seater is the area where Fianna Fáil happened to have one seat out of four. The Minister knows as well as I do that the effect of making Dún Laoghaire a three-seat constituency would be that the Coalition would lose a seat. Fianna Fáil would at the very least keep the seat they have. That of course is why Dún Laoghaire is the odd-man-out in the whole of Dublin city and county.

As I pointed out the last day, Dún Laoghaire need not really have been touched at all because the population of the constituency of Dún Laoghaire is now such that it could have been left as it was with the addition of one seat, making it a five-seater. Of course that could not be done either from the Minister's point of view because that would mean a Fianna Fáil gain.

It is not that anybody suggests for a moment that the Taoiseach would be in any danger of losing his seat but simply that in an area where the Taoiseach stands and where therefore his side of the Coalition would be expected to be strong it is necessary from the Minister's point of view to leave the situation that there would be, as he hoped—and I think wrongly hoped—three Coalition Deputies and only one Fianna Fáil Deputy.

We have this pattern all through the Bill where three-seaters are produced all over the country in areas where the Coalition are strong and are eliminated in areas where Fianna Fáil are strong. The situation in the Dublin area really sums up this entire Bill. It reflects the hope of the Minister that, whatever may happen in the rest of the country, the Coalition strength will be sufficient in Dublin city to enable them to win the election no matter how many seats they might lose elsewhere.

The Minister has said, quite rightly, that no one can be certain how an election will go. It is accepted that opinion is already swinging to such an extent in Dublin that it is extremely likely that this will rebound on the Coalition and that at the next election the present Opposition will get the two seats out of three in Dublin instead of it being the other way around. But that is not the point. We are not discussing the Minister's credentials as a political prophet. We have to consider his rather disreputable aims in bringing in this legislation. They are absolutely clear as regards the Dublin area.

The Minister says it is ridiculous to suggest that there could be any element of gerrymandering because who could be certain how an election might go. The newspapers—most of them friendly to his side—were in no doubt about this matter.

All the newspapers treated this Bill from the first as an effort on the part of the Coalition Government to get as many seats out of the exercise as they possibly could. The newspapers, which are of course always wrong about elections, have been quite sure that as a result of this exercise, and particularly as a result of the changes in Dublin, the Coalition will gain a considerable number of seats in the next election. It is not just Fianna Fáil Senators or Deputies who are making this charge: the Minister's own friends in the newspapers have assumed all along that this is the aim of the exercise. They have read the Bill. It has been quite clear to them, as it has been to the rest of us, that the purpose of this exercise is to win seats for the Coalition. That is the main objection to the carve-up, particularly in the Dublin area. While one can certainly put up an argument in favour of three-seat constituencies, there can be no argument in favour of the Minister's proposition of bringing in a large number of new three-seat constituencies in the Dublin area and eliminating half of those that already exist in other areas in the country. That shows a consistent, deliberate pattern of gerrymandering.

Mr. Harte

The impression given by the two Senators we have listened to is that in some magic way the Minister can transform the people in constituencies for all time. This seems to me, as a simple person, a little bit ridiculous. These remarks seem to suggest that this person could foresee the future so well that he would be able to exercise his ability to such an extent that national and international influences would have no effect on policies.

Mr. B. Lenihan

He thinks he can and that is worse.

Mr. Harte

Let me see what you said. For example, you began by saying that your organisation was so virile and strong that it was all the same what the Minister did. I cannot see what the argument was about.

Mr. B. Lenihan

That is not what he thought.

Mr. Harte

I do not accept that. You said you did not intend to engage in filibustering but that is what is meant. On the one hand they are saying that the Minister cannot foresee the future and therefore it does not matter what he does. Therefore I do not see what all the bellyaching is about.

The remarkable feature of this debate was that, even though there was a suggestion that the Minister was trying to manipulate the constituencies on the basis of a conquest for all time, he was not going to succeed by going about it in this manner.

An Cathaoirleach

I have to ask the Senator to address the Chair and to refer to the Minister and Senators as such.

Mr. Harte

I apologise. I suppose that comes from being reared in a tenement.

The Senators spoke merely in terms of how to protect the individual interests of political candidates. The Senators on the opposite side of the House had no regard to the question of whether the Administration they would provide would be a liability on the people or whether it would be the best that could be produced. What the Minister did was to examine the background and when he had all the information in his possession he made the decision that this was the best arrangement in order to give the nation the type of social and just administration necessary and that the people will not be denied any rights in the exercise of their franchise.

This is the kind of question which is important when discussing constituencies. An examination of the situation is made and then you come to terms with the matter. Two Ministers of the Fianna Fáil Party made the same arrangement in the same constituencies. I hope they went about the matter in the same way; that they dealt with the situation in accordance with the Constitution and not in an arbitrary fashion.

I cannot see that any evidence has come to light to show that disaster will befall the country because the Minister carried out his duties in a fair and just manner or that the Minister's action will result in either he or any of his colleagues being in power forever. Even opinion polls vary from one particular time to another. I cannot understand the case being made that because of alterations in the Constituency Bill people have been denied their rights. When people are debating the question of the constituencies I wish they would talk about the people's right, whether the action of the Minister would deny them the right to full employment, the right to full dignity as individuals. These are all relevant matters. As far as the Bill is concerned, there is no question of fredom being denied. If the Fianna Fáil organisation is as strong as Senator Lenihan believes it to be, I have no doubt that when the time comes they will see to it that the people will not be denied. I hope they will think of the people and not of themselves regaining seats and so on.

Mr. E. Ryan

I am not quarrelling with whether in the city of Dublin the Minister should put a particular area into this constituency or that. What I am concerned about is the lack of any policy or consistency in what the Minister is doing in Dublin and what the Minister has advocated in the past. As far as three-seaters for Dublin city are concerned, I am in favour of them because I am not enthusiastic about PR. The three-seater is as far as you can go in the opposite direction. The Minister and his party, the Government, have advocated PR in the past. They have fought two referenda on the subject and have on many occasions praised the advantages of PR. If PR means anything, if it has any merit, the merit it has is that it gives representation to small factions. If PR is to be put into operation and so give representation to small factions, then there must be large constituencies. Consequently to be in favour of PR on the one hand and to introduce a Bill such as this, which has three-seaters all over Dublin city, is quite inconsistent and does not make sense. Therefore we are entitled to ask the Minister why does he have three-seaters in Dublin.

I pick on Dublin in particular, because it may be difficult in some areas of the country to have large constituencies. It is arguable that if you have a particular county, the size of which is exactly a three-seater, then there are grounds for an argument which states "We will make this county a three-seater". No such argument or special pleading can be made for the city of Dublin as there is no difficulty in carving it up into any particular size of constituency which is thought fit. Consequently there is every opportunity for having large constituencies in Dublin. There is no excuse for stating we must have three-seaters because of natural boundaries and so on.

In this amendment we have suggested five-seaters in a number of areas in Dublin to enable the Minister to tell us why he is against five-seaters, to justify three-seaters rather than five-seaters, to state why he and his party and the Government, who have advocated proportional representation in the past—which necessarily means large constituencies—have not introduced large constituencies in Dublin where it would be possible and desirable. If he was sincere in the past in advocating proportional representation, it is inconsistent not to have them; and we are putting the suggestion of a certain number of five-seaters to enable the Minister to justify or explain the inconsistency of what he is doing now and what he advocated in the past.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I could feel the sincerity of Senator Eoin Ryan's speech but I find it difficult to reconcile his sincerity, which I do not doubt, with what his colleagues in the Fianna Fáil Party have done on this amendment. Senator Eoin Ryan was arguing that in the Dublin city constituencies there is no difficulty about making the constituencies as large as one liked because there were no local loyalties, forgetting for the moment that Senator Lenihan made a great plea earlier about local loyalties and natural affiliations. If Senator Eoin Ryan looks at what his colleagues have done, he will see they have not suggested large constituencies in Dublin city. They have suggested large constituencies only in Dublin county.

Mr. Dolan

I, too, should like to support these amendments. As one who comes from a rural area and from a constituency which is being realigned and redivided I want to state that we are very disappointed at the way in which this Bill has been framed and the method of dividing these constituencies. As we have stated on previous occasions, it takes more people in rural areas to elect a Deputy than in Dublin city. That is most unfair to those who live in sparsely-populated areas where there is a small population density per square mile.

I admit that under the Constitution it takes 20,103 persons to elect a Deputy and that there is a slight tolerance allowed of 1,000 one way or another. That tolerance should have leaned in favour of the rural population. These amendments relate particularly to Dublin city where there are a number of three-seat constituencies. We want to know where the Minister started to allot these constituencies. If he started in Dublin city by making three-seat constituencies he should have continued in that manner. If, as it seems, he has thrown all county boundaries aside and has started on three-seat constituencies, the logical thing would have been to continue with three-seat constituencies until he reached the Atlantic Ocean. In that way he might ensure that, instead of having only 28 Deputies from west of the Shannon, we would have the 30 Deputies we feel we are entitled to. Had the Minister continued with the three-seat constituencies it is obvious he would have gone through similar action along the Border counties in Ulster and would have allowed two three-seaters in Donegal, with some additions, and made Counties Cavan and Monaghan three-seater constituencies, too.

It is conceded that, irrespective of how the constituencies are divided, the electorate will decide the result of an election. I am not totally concerned with this. I am primarily concerned with representation in rural Ireland vis-á-vis the cities. I agree that the cities should have as near as possible a certain population figure to elect a Deputy, but if any leniency were to be given it should be given in the rural areas. We all know the population has decreased in rural areas. It should be the desire of the Government to maintain this population which would relieve the necessity for extra houses and schools in built-up areas, especially along the east coast.

These are sensible amendments and were designed primarily to convince the Minister that those in rural areas are concerned. If three-seat constituencies are good enough for Dublin city they should have been extended. That policy should have obtained in regard to the city at large rather than allow some four-seater and five-seater constituencies to remain. I assure the Minister, without being personal, that he would have no difficulty in being returned as a Deputy, but when we in a neighbouring county see he is making a four-seater——

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator is now discussing constituencies which are not part of this group of amendments.

Mr. Dolan

I am discussing the matter of three-seaters which seems to be covered here. Quite a number of new constituencies have been outlined in Dublin city and in the other amendments under Group A, that is, amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21.

An Cathaoirleach

That is true, and the Senator was barely in order while he was doing that. When he goes on to mention constituencies such as Meath and Cavan, which are mentioned subsequently, he is going beyond the bounds of the amendment.

Mr. Dolan

I was trying to point out that most of this hinges on where the Minister starts his operation. If this has started in Dublin city and if the trend has been set to go for three-seat constituencies, the trend should be continued through the rest of the country.

Mr. McGlinchey

If the Minister for Foreign Affairs were to write an article in The Sunday Independent on amendment No. 1 just as he wrote on that famous Sunday morning on 12th November, 1972, and if he wanted to be honest he would have to admit that nothing has been done to change our corrupt system of constituency manipulation. If that Minister or any Minister or indeed anyone with a sense of justice and fair play wanted an example of gerrymandering, the constituency of Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown is the most blatant example of such gerrymandering.

Senator Harte was of the opinion that this Bill does not bring any type of disaster to the people but I believe that the Minister and the Government are attempting to devise a system and divide the constituencies in such a way that if they get their wish it could mean nothing but disaster for our people.

Their main objective is the perpetuation of their Government in office. They are an inept Government, a Government that the people are realising day by day are a disaster, a Government that as each day passes are responsible for a situation whereby it is becoming more difficult to live. That is the type of disaster that could happen if the wishes of this Government, in designing the constituencies in this way, are realised.

Any fair-minded person is entitled to ask the question "Why are there 13 three-seaters in Dublin city and one single four-seater in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?" On the Second Stage debate I suggested that there was a rumour circulating that Mr. William Craig was the chief adviser to the Minister on the manipulation of the constituencies in the Republic. I see the hand of William Craig in the division of Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. The Minister is a strong believer in the propaganda weapon, as are all his colleagues in Government. He believes that if he says something often enough and loud enough people will listen to him and believe him. His explanation for a four-seater in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, according to his reply to the Second Reading of this Bill in this House, is reported in Volume 77, column 1007. The Minister stated:

There were 43 seats going in the Dublin area and if you divide 43 by 14 you get three-seat constituencies with one over. I think it was Senator McGlinchey who was talking about .5 of a Deputy. Unless we succeeded in doing like Solomon, getting a sword and cutting a fellow into 14 pieces—I do not see any volunteers around—and giving a piece to each one of the others, we could not do it. We had to put a four-seater somewhere and Dún Laoghaire was the natural one for it.

This is complete nonsense. The Minister is attempting to justify his gerrymandering by persuading the people of Ireland that it was essential to have 43 seats in the Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire areas and that 14 does not go into 43 evenly. The Minister, the Government and the Irish people will eventually realise that 43 seats were not necessary in the Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire areas. Forty-two or indeed 41 would have sufficed. If he had chosen the figure of 42 he could have had 14 three-seater constituencies. It will be as plain as a pikestaff to the people of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown that this constituency has been left a four-seater because the Government believe the Taoiseach will be able to continue to elect a second Fine Gael Deputy in that constituency.

The Minister tried to give the impression that Fianna Fáil were suggesting the purpose of the four-seater in Dún Laoghaire was to save the Taoiseach from being defeated in a general election, realising that that type of nonsensical remark would be treated with the ridicule it deserved.

Mr. Tully

Tell Senator Lenihan that. It was he who said it.

Mr. Lenihan

I did not say that. What I said is that the four-seat constituency was designed to make it easy for the Taoiseach and whoever would be running with him to maintain their position.

Mr. Tully

That is not what the Senator said.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator McGlinchey to continue on the amendment.

Mr. McGlinchey

It is obvious to most people that the Taoiseach is in no danger of losing his seat but it should also be obvious that if Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown became a three-seater the Taoiseach's Fine Gael colleague would lose his seat or if he did not lose it the Minister's colleague, Deputy Desmond, would lose his seat. At the moment the constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown elects two Fine Gael, one Labour and one Fianna Fáil Deputies. The Government realised fully that even in a three-seater Fianna Fáil could not possibly lose and that if Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown was made a three-seater either Fine Gael or Labour—but certainly a Coalition Deputy—would lose his seat. As the preservation of the Coalition Government's term in office was the principle criteria of the Minister and his Government in formulating this Bill, he was not prepared to leave a constituency in Dún Laoghaire electing a similar number of Deputies as the 13 other constituencies in this city.

If the Minister had even been honest about it and admitted the truth, the situation would not be quite so bad. He should stand up like a man and admit that the purpose of having 13 three-seaters in Dublin city is to ensure that in each of those 13 constituencies only one Fianna Fáil Deputy will be elected and that the Coalition Government would have a two-to-one majority in this city, which is of course completely out of proportion to the percentage votes cast for each party. The Minister should stand up like a man and say: "We cannot have a three-seater in Dún Laoghaire, because it is not Fianna Fáil that would lose on this occasion: it would be the Coalition Government, and that simply is not on."

We all know that Deputy Desmond has been hard to placate during the last 12 months. We all know that when the spoils were divided after the general election, Deputy Desmond was very disappointed; and we all know that the Government intend in the not too distant future to provide four extra jobs to keep Deputy Desmond and some of his colleagues happy. The Minister realises fully that following Deputy Desmond's disappointment of a year ago, if he were to place the Deputy's political future in jeopardy by making Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown a three-seater, the chances of this Government receiving the continued support of Deputy Desmond would be very slim indeed. The Minister's back was to the wall. Here was a Deputy who would not be dictated to. Here was a Deputy who would not allow the Coalition Government to place his political future in jeopardy. The Minister knows that if the Taoiseach does not produce a State car for that Deputy in the not too distant future, the Government will be in trouble as far as he is concerned.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Surely it is not in order for a Senator to make an attack of that sort on a Member of the other House who obviously has not an opportunity of defending himself in this House.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I take your point, Senator O'Higgins. I think Senator McGlinchey should refer to the amendment before him and leave personalities out of it.

Mr. McGlinchey

I did not consider that as an attack. I realise that Senator O'Higgins and his colleagues are very much on edge these days.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Whether the Senator interprets it as an attack or not, I now interpret it as an attack and ask him to continue his speech on the amendment.

Mr. McGlinchey

For the reasons that I have given, because it is practically impossible for the Government to allow a three-seater in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, we have the unusual situation that in the Dublin area there are 13 three-seaters and one four-seater. Because of the very special position of the Members of the Oireachtas in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. When Senator Harte spoke he stated that he felt a very important point was being overlooked —the people's rights in a constituency. I agree with Senator Harte. I believe that the people's rights have not been taken into consideration as far as this Bill is concerned. I believe that if the Minister were to accept this amendment he would be going part of the way to recognising that the people have rights.

On the previous occasion on which this House debated an Electoral Bill there was considerable talk of a rural bias instead of a city bias. Anyone who reads the population figures in all the constituencies must see at first glance that the emphasis is categorically on a city bias in this Bill. We find that there are constituencies in this city, covered by this amendment, that require a little more than 19,000 people to elect a Deputy whereas on the west coast and particularly the north-western coast the Minister, for reasons of political expediency, has seen fit to arrange the constituencies in such a way that it takes more than 21,000 people to elect a Deputy,

The Minister stated that there are 43 seats going in the Dublin area whereas if he had used the same tolerance ratio in Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire as he has used in rural Ireland there would have been 42 seats for the Dublin area. But this did not suit the Minister; it did not suit the Government. The Minister realises that as the weeks go by his Government are losing popularity in the rural areas, in the farming areas and in the underdeveloped areas, and as the months go by this Government will depend more and more on the city of Dublin and on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. That is why the constituencies have been so manipulated in the hope that it will give a two-to-one advantage to this Government. I believe that if the Minister were to accept this amendment he would be going part of the way to correct a blatant injustice, one which the people of this country will realise in due course. When they do that they will deal with the Minister and his Government in a way they may not expect.

Mr. Tully

I should at this stage point out for Senator McGlinchey's benefit that I never have any hesitation in standing up for what I say: whether that is in defence of myself or in defence of a colleague he can be assured that I am prepared to do it. I will not on any occasion stand up and defend a colleague today and if I find that it suits me better stick a knife in his back tomorrow. Senator McGlinchey can be sure of that. It will never happen as far as I am concerned. I believe in calling a spade a spade. That sort of remark which he made that I was doing certain things just to protect a colleague in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is the sort of remark which does not do much in debating a Bill like this.

We have heard again and again remarks about Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. Let me say for his information there is no constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in the new Bill. The constituency is Dún Laoghaire and if Senator McGlinchey went to the trouble of checking on the Bill he would find the very good reason why it was necessary to have a four-seater and why it was natural to have a four-seater in that area. Not alone is he not correct—and another Senator before him made the same comment and was not correct—in saying that there should have been only 40 instead of 42 or 43 seats in Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire, that we could do with one or two fewer, but we could in fact have had one or two more in Dublin, justifiably. We could have had it including the areas which were brought in from Kildare and Wicklow. We could easily have justified another two seats. It is entirely wrong for anybody to say—and this has been repeated again and again—that there is a bias in favour of Dublin.

I have repeated it I do not know how many times. I apologise for having to again repeat the figures: it takes 20,142 electors per Deputy in Dublin as against 20,116 per Deputy in the rest of the country. I do not know how often I have to say that in order that it will be brought home. It is pretty difficult. Arguments are being made by one Senator on the Opposition benches and contradicted flatly by the next one and what they say contradicted flatly by the next one again. It is hard to get a pattern and this is one of the reasons why I have intervened at this stage rather than waiting to let it run along until other people have spoken, because it is very difficult to try to reply to arguments being made which are so contradictory. It is true that Senator Lenihan said at the start that Dún Laoghaire is to be a four-seater "in order to protect the Taoiseach" were the words he used—he subsequently added that it was by way of helping the second Fine Gael man who would be running with him. But he did not say that at the start. Now Senator Yeats is against three-seaters in Dublin but he is in favour of three-seaters in the rest of the country.

Mr. Yeats

I am against the Minister's reason for bringing them in.

Mr. Tully

He is against three-seaters in Dublin and in favour of three-seaters in the rest of the country.

Mr. Yeats

No, I did not say that.

Mr. Tully

The big trouble with Senator Yeats and many of the Fianna Fáil Senators is that they do not know what they want. One thing they do want and one thing I will not do. They are attempting to put across here that it is my job to go round the country and where it would favour Fianna Fáil, to put in four and five-seaters and where it would not favour them to do something else. That is not my job. I do not propose to do it no matter how many of them ask me to do it. As far as I am concerned I drew up a Bill which I considered to be fair to everybody. We have had the sneer about Dún Laoghaire, that we are putting a four-seater in Dún Laoghaire and we are doing it for a peculiar reason. The peculiar reason, the one thing they seemed to be fairly unanimous about, was that I was avoiding having a three-seater there in case the Coalition would lose a seat. They did not say that Fianna Fáil would gain a seat but the Coalition would lose a seat. Surely it follows that if they are right there the number of votes transferred to some other area should give that seat back. This is the sort of thinking I cannot understand. I cannot follow the reasoning——

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

They want a five-seater there.

Mr. Tully

I will come to that in a minute. Nobody said today that there is a four-seater in Meath and nobody would suggest, and I point this out again, that is to protect my seat. I can well protect it myself but the people who are most likely to gain from that are Fianna Fáil. Not one in Fianna Fáil got up and cheered and danced on the seats and said: "Look, he is giving a seat to Fianna Fáil. He is handing it over." It is wrong if it seems to be inclined to protect a seat, as has been suggested, for the Coalition; but if we go to the other side and appear to be giving a seat to Fianna Fáil then it is for some other reason it is being done. It is not because it is the fairest way to do it.

Senator Dolan wanted to know how did I start. He repeated a suggestion which he made in his Second Reading speech that we should start off somewhere and have three-seaters all over the whole country irrespective of what boundaries were being breached. He would be quite happy as long as Cavan got three seats. If we did that we would have created an extraordinary situation.

Senator McGlinchey said that this amendment would do something. We are not talking about an amendment. We are talking about amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21. I do not know which of them he thinks will "do something". If he is talking about those dealing with County Dublin, it is proposed in the Fianna Fáil amendment to have a three-seater South-West County Dublin, a five-seater North County Dublin, a four-seater South County Dublin and a five-seater in Dún Laoghaire, and there is not a word about Dublin city. All the argument here has been about the fact that it is wrong to have three-seaters all over Dublin. Anybody who comes in here and tries to put a story across that the members of Fianna Fáil "think-tanks" spent many nights with towels tied around their heads working out this type of an amendment and presented here a similar amendment to the one which was presented in the Dáil, without one grain of support for it——

Mr. McGlinchey

Which the Minister guillotined in the Dáil.

Mr. Tully

This one was not guillotined. If the Senator would read the Dáil Official Report he would realise that this was not so. It does not do any harm to bone up on facts when the debate is coming up because it is amazing what one can find when it comes to this.

Mr. Yeats

The dictatorship started a little later.

Mr. Tully

As far as dictatorship is concerned the Senators in the Opposition benches here today prove conclusively that they agreed with me that to spend 60 hours debating the heading of the Bill and the number of Deputies that should be in the House instead of debating what we are talking about now was ridiculous. I agree entirely with Senator Lenihan, who made a remark something along these lines. It is absolutely ludicrous that it should be done. We are now debating the meat of the Bill. If anybody went to the trouble of checking up on what was said on this particular portion of it in the other House, he would find that the arguments being made by the Opposition were entirely different from the arguments being made by their colleagues. It is difficult for me to know what on earth Fianna Fáil want. It appears that they want me to arrange to ensure the return of the Fianna Fáil Government at the next election. I do not believe the good God above can do that, so it would be hard for me to do it.

Mr. Lenihan

I would ask the Minister to take the heat out of this matter. We are engaged here as a responsible Opposition in putting forward responsible propositions to a Bill which he advances and to the Schedule, in particular, of that Bill. In this capacity in which we are engaged we are pressing the reality of the fact that the Minister has proceeded in an absolutely arbitrary manner to create three-seat constituencies in Dublin city and county with the exception of a four-seat constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown designed to ensure that the Taoiseach's situation is strengthened and propped up by the election of two Coalition candidates.

That is the overall strategy. I would suggest to the Minister and to the Government that we have a duty to the public at large to see that justice at least appears to be done. In the achievement of that we recognise that in putting forward our amendments, if the Minister is devising a scheme of three-seat constituencies with the single exceptions I have mentioned, he might at least put some reasonably honest and straightforward face on it.

We have decided to take the type of attitude that I feel would be taken by an impartial judicial or quasi-judicial tribunal or commission. We would trust that the Minister would look at the matter with some semblance of equity or fairness or at least put a colour of decency on the manner in which this rearrangement is proposed. Looked at in that way, surely it is logical to preserve the North County Dublin geographical area as set out in our amendment No. 7. It is an area that fits in exactly with what had traditionally been North County Dublin, and to anyone who knows the geography of this country it comprises exactly the electoral divisions that are at the moment comprised in electoral areas Nos. 1 and 2 for election to the Dublin County Council. They are traditional areas that link together and have been linked together for constituency purposes since the foundation of the State.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

How are they at the moment?

Mr. Lenihan

At the moment they are a four-seat constituency with some exceptions. I will not go into the details of the electoral divisions. For instance, the Clondalkin area is not in the present five-seater constituency. With one or two exceptions of detail the five-seater constituency that we propose here is the four-seater constituency that is here at present. That is a natural geographical entity. Similarly in South County Dublin we have, outside Dún Laoghaire and outside the urban area, the electoral areas that have traditionally been Electoral Areas Nos. 3 and 4 that provided election to the Dublin County Council. They are comprised in a South County Dublin four-seater constituency. Again there is no breach of county boundary and largely no breach of electoral area and no breach of traditional geographical loyalties and associations. There is no breach such as the Minister's crude three-seat carve-up and it is nothing more than that.

Similarly in the Dún Laoghaire amendment we propose that the borough of Dún Laoghaire and the very contiguous areas of Stillorgan, Ballybrack and Dundrum be incorporated in a five-seat constituency. Again there is no breach of county boundary. There is a direct association between Dún Laoghaire and its immediate environs and suburbs. Consequential on that, we say that if the Minister wants to embark on a series of three-seat constituencies in the rest of Dublin city and county we have decided to rearrange the three-seat constituencies in a way that will leave as a territorial unit Dublin city, county and Dún Laoghaire, and we have done that by making sensible and constructive amendments. I wish the Minister would take them in this spirit.

There is nothing in what we suggest here that can be suggested as an outrageous breach of a Committee Stage debate on an important matter in what we propose here. We propose that instead of breaching County Wicklow and County Kildare, with the consequential breaches of other counties in the Leinster area, we take Dublin city and county as a unit. As a unit there is a Dún Laoghaire five-seat constituency that fits the natural administrative unit of Dún Laoghaire and its immediate suburbs. There is a natural South County Dublin constituency of four seats that again fits the natural county council electoral areas and there is a natural five-seat constituency for North County Dublin. Along with that we have the nine three-seat constituencies arranged to fit in in accordance with them. I should like the Minister to deal specifically with this point and in particular to deal with the judgment of Mr. Justice Budd when he stated that a constituency would have to have regard for 20,000 population per representative with due tolerance and that county boundaries should be observed, but where county boundaries could not be observed then the constitutional provision would obtain.

What we are suggesting here is a method of dealing with Dublin city and Greater Dublin that will, on the one hand, observe the constitutional requirements of having 20,000 voters per representative with the due tolerance, and, on the other hand, will not breach in any way either the Dublin Corporation or Dublin County Council boundaries and will not involve any breach in the arrangement of constituencies in Dublin city, and Greater Dublin will not be involved in any breach whatever in the neighbouring counties to it. Now I would suggest to the Minister that that represents a very fair and realistic approach.

If the Minister seeks to get three-seat constituencies by the crude wielding of the axe, then he will bring the whole administration and the management of affairs in this country into disrepute. If the Minister wants his three-seat constituencies as far as it is humanly possible within the constitutional requirements and wants to avoid any breach of county boundaries, of the counties adjacent to Dublin in order to preserve Dublin and the Greater Dublin area intact as an overall unit, the sensible and constructive way to approach it is, as is suggested here in amendment No. 7, where we amend amendment No. 8 to the Schedule, thus providing two five-seat, one four-seat and nine three-seat constituencies.

Now there is a very balanced approach. I should like the Minister to address his mind not to invective or hectoring but to giving us the precise reasons why this cannot be done; or why it is not being done or why our amendments or amendments similar to those amendments cannot be met. Or has the Minister any ideas on what possible adjustments to his own proposals he can adopt that will meet the spirit of our amendments?

We have suggested how it can be done. The Minister's only answer is the crude wielding of the gerrymander axe whereby in order to achieve what he thinks is proper we have three-seaters willy nilly, apart from the Taoiseach's own constituency, in achieving which the Minister does not pay any respect or have any regard to the adjacent counties to the extent that part of Bray is brought into County Dublin, to the extent that North Kildare is brought into another constituency in County Dublin, with ensuing effects in other counties throughout Leinster. I would ask the Minister to apply his mind to that mid-point and to tell the parliamentarians in this House of the Oireachtas present what is illogical, what is wrong, about our amendments or if there is something wrong in our amendments can the Minister devise any other amendments that will enable the Minister to ensure that Dublin city and county are taken as a unit, that there is a proper balanced rearrangement of constituencies within that unit and that the neighbouring counties in the province of Leinster are not interfered with in the manner in which they have been.

If the Minister wants to achieve credit amongst decent people, he can achieve very real credit among them by showing that he is at least facing up to an argument that is being put here in a sensible and constructive manner. I should like to hear that argument dealt with in a constructive manner by the Minister; and what occurs to me here is the undeniable fact that the Government are not facing up to it in that manner. The Government are just making a decision: "There shall be three-seaters in Dublin city and county with the exception of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. There shall be three-seaters irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the situation, irrespective of the loyalties of people, irrespective of the particular geographical location of areas, and irrespective of what anybody thinks in regard to their loyalties or their associations or the tradition of areas that have been observed we are going to put Dublin city and county into a three-seat straitjacket. We do not care about county boundaries; we do not care about what people think or care for anything else." I am afraid that is the logic of it. That is the only logic of it; otherwise there would be some attempt to meet the spirit and the desirable objective set out in our amendments, which is to ensure that Dublin city and county and the integrity of Dublin city and county be observed.

We suggest it can be observed. This is one way of doing it. There may be some other way of doing it. One way of doing it is to adopt the suggestion which we have incorporated in our amendments of having a three-seater in South-West County Dublin, a five-seater in North County Dublin, a four-seater in South County Dublin, a five-seater in Dún Laoghaire and having within Dublin city itself then the three-seat constituencies which the Minister apparently has decided should obtain, these three-seat constituencies being adjusted in our amendments to accord with the overall principle—at least there is a principle incorporated in these amendments— of preserving Dublin city and county as a unit and within that unit to work in a responsible and reasonable manner.

Mr. Tully

If I have to repeat myself on a number of matters which I have already dealt with, I am sure Senator Lenihan will bear with me for a few minutes. It would appear that having themselves manipulated in every possible way the constituencies of this country since they came into office first in 1932, they now feel that they should have the right to insist on the constituencies being manipulated as they want them in 1974, and it is just not on.

I have gone to great trouble in an effort to try to give a fair balance all round and I gave an example of it a few minutes ago where, after all the salt tears which have been cried about Dún Laoghaire being a four-seater for the purpose of protecting the Taoiseach or the Taoiseach's running mate or something like that and that Fianna Fáil would lose a seat, that if there was a three-seat in it the Coalition would lose a seat and this was the reason it was being done. I went back to County Meath and I said there is the other example. In County Meath nobody would suggest that I am going to lose my seat. I did not lose it when Fianna Fáil manipulated it and am unlikely to lose it now.

Mr. McGlinchey

But the Minister lost it before.

Mr. Tully

But I came back into the House again and headed the poll twice.

Mr. Yeats

On a point of order, while I have no objection whatever to discussing County Meath with the Minister I would recommend that we should wait until we reach that particular part of this Bill. We will be very happy to discuss County Meath, but if the Minister for the second time refers to his own county of Meath the difficulty is that we will have to reply and then we will be out of order. I would suggest that he should leave it over.

Mr. Tully

I thought there was only one chairman in the House.

Mr. Yeats

I am raising a point of order.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Could I reply to the point of order? The Senator is quite correct that Meath comes within the scope of the next amendment. The Minister was using it to illustrate a point and I think it was quite valid to illustrate the point. I do not think he was going into the details of the situation. The Minister continued to reply and he said——

Mr. Tully

Senator Lenihan challenged me to give a reply and when I attempted to give the reply Senator Yeats attempted to put me off. He should know that it is a waste of time trying to put me off because that will not succeed, and the only reference I make to the County Meath is that the four-seater in Meath should, if Fianna Fáil do not make bigger fools of themselves as they have been doing give them a fourth seat and therefore nobody says: "O.K. we are doing this in order to help Fianna Fáil." I am not, but that is the way the regulation appears to work out, and I think if they are able to get it they are entitled to it.

Now we have heard argument after argument from some of the people from the Fianna Fáil benches about the necessity that we should not have three-seats in Dublin city, but in their amendments they do not refer to Dublin city at all. Maybe they do not know. They refer to Dublin South-West, County Dublin, North County Dublin, South County Dublin and Dún Laoghaire, and there is not a word about Dublin city.

Mr. Lenihan

That is in the next amendment.

Mr. Tully

I am talking about amendments Nos. 1, 7, 8, 11 and 21 and we are discussing those en bloc.

We cannot just pull something out of the air and pretend it is there if in fact it is not. What is before us are these amendments and they do not contain one word about Dublin city, three-seaters or anything else.

Mr. Lenihan

They do. They all refer to three-seat constituencies in the inner Dublin area, that is the Dublin metropolitan area. We are discussing that.

Mr. Tully

It does not change the decision which says that South-West County Dublin is a three-seater, North-County Dublin a five-seater, South County Dublin a four-seater, and Dún Laoghaire a five-seater.

Mr. Lenihan

And the following paragraph which is being taken with paragraph 7 in the group. The following amendment, No. 8, is being taken with amendment No. 7, and it deals with all the Dublin city constituencies.

Mr. Tully

I am sorry if that is so. With the Dublin constituencies, yes.

Mr. McGlinchey

I would suggest that the Minister should take to himself the advice he gave me earlier and study the legislation before he comes into the House.

Mr. Tully

I have studied the legislation but unfortunately the way this amendment is down, it appears as if Fianna Fáil wanted to change the number of seats in Dublin. It appears as if they are perfectly happy to have three-seats in Dublin provided they say it is three seats. If the Coalition Government propose three seats, that is wrong. If Fianna Fáil propose three seats, that is right. The situation then is that they propose a change in County Dublin.

I would refer Senator Lenihan to another matter. He talks about not breaching boundaries. If he goes through—as I hope will be possible later on—some of the other areas, it will show the most crazy pattern of boundary breaching that is possible. It is even worse than the boundary breaching which was carried out by the last change of constituencies by a Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government. As far as I can see the only thing that is wrong with the Bill before the House is that Fianna Fáil did not bring it in. The only thing that is wrong with those particular sections with which we are dealing is that it was the National Coalition that brought them in, not Fianna Fáil. If Fianna Fáil comes in it will be all right. Fianna Fáil not having brought it in now want me to accept their suggestions. I want to assure them that I have gone into the matter very fully. I am perfectly satisfied that the arrangements made of 13 three-seaters in the Dublin area and one four-seater in Dún Laoghaire is a reasonable way of dealing with the matter.

Mr. Killilea

Plus breaching of county boundaries.

Mr. Tully

The only breaching of county boundaries, for Deputy Killilea's benefit, is Wicklow and Kildare. If he knew the area of Kildare which is affected he would know that it is an area which has been built up mainly through movement of Dublin people. It is an area in which it would be possible to find exactly the same people as live in most of the suburbs of Dublin. Deputy Lenihan, I am sure would be the first to admit that this is so.

Mr. Yeats

What about Blessington?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would Senators allow the Minister to make his speech. You can all raise your points afterwards. Let us have less interruptions from everybody.

Mr. Tully

Therefore the situation is simply this, that we have prepared a very reasonable scheme for County Dublin and Dublin city. If the Government are doing well in four years' time, when the next election comes around, they then will win two out of three seats there. If they are doing badly, the Opposition will win two out of three seats and that will be the end of the matter. For goodness sake, do not be talking like children, as if it were possible to manipulate it a certain way and create a situation where a particular party or parties would be able to get control of an area whether they had a majority of votes in the area or not. That seems to be the idea which Fianna Fáil have in their mind.

In the middle of that argument they throw in the suggestion "Of course Fianna Fáil will win even though this has been done." If they win, good luck to them. They are entitled to it. It is what the electorate wants. But in fact the three-seaters, as Deputy Noel Lemass said, are the quickest way to cheat a Government if they are not doing well. In Dublin city we have that exact situation. As regards the rest of the country, I cannot discuss it now, but I will, because Senator Yeats was anxious to discuss the comparison, when we come to the relevant section of the Bill.

Mr. McGlinchey

Before the Minister treats us to another homily on back-stabbing, I would suggest that he finds out who played the role of Brutus and who played the role of Caesar?

Mr. Tully

If it was in Donegal, we know who played Brutus.

Mr. McGlinchey

I am glad the Minister knows. I know who played Brutus, because for years there have been more than one lean and hungry Casius in the Labour Party, from what I hear from Dr. Browne and others. The Minister would have won an "Oscar" for his part as Brutus. If there was an "Oscar" for political manipulation and for gerrymandering, I have no doubt that this Minister for Local Government would win one. We have had ruthless Ministers for Local Government——

Mr. Tully

But you dealt with them.

Mr. McGlinchey

——in the past, but I have no hesitation in saying—I did not hear that remark—that the present Minister outshines them all. The only difference is that——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. McGlinchey

——when he is ruthless, when he is really driving in the knife, he smiles whereas the others snarl. That smile is very effective because people believe that a man like the Minister who smiles the way he does could not be guilty of political manipulation. Earlier he told us that he could have put two extra seats in Dublin. The question I should like to ask him is: why did he not? I believe I can answer it for him. If he had given two extra seats in Dublin he would have had to create two four-seaters instead of three-seaters. If he did so Fianna Fáil would have got two seats out of the four in each constituency. That is the only reason the Minister did not take two extra seats in this city.

The Minister also dismissed as ridiculous, the suggestion that there is a city bias in this Bill. Yet there are constituencies in Dublin city and Dún Laoghaire where 19,292 people have a right to a Deputy, whereas in the Donegal constituency it takes 21,102; in Roscommon-Leitrim 21,119 and in Sligo-Leitrim, 21,110. Can the Minister claim that there is not a bias towards the city voter? In the three north-western constituencies it takes over 21,000 votes to elect a Deputy while in Dublin a Deputy can be elected with about 19,000 votes. Does the Minister believe that 21,000 Donegal people are as good as 19,000 Dublin people? The Minister is reversing the situation in this instance. He has arranged the constituencies in such a way that in Donegal, Roscommon-Leitrim and Sligo-Leitrim the population per member is more than 21,000, whereas in Dublin city in some constituencies it is something more than 19,000. How can the Minister believe that 19,000 Dublin men are as good as 21,000 Roscommon men, Leitrim men or Donegal men? How can he justify the assertion he made a few moments ago that there is not a city bias? Does the Minister believe that if he repeats something often enough the people will believe it?

The average ratio has been altered by the Minister to suit himself and his Government. We will have an opportunity of commenting on the Minister's assertions about Meath when we come to that situation. He also stated that if this Government were doing well they would get two out of three in Dublin city but if they were doing badly they would get one out of three. I expect that is the explanation for many of the actions of the Government during recent months so far as rural areas are concerned. Do the Government think that by pouring their resources into Dublin city, that city will ensure their re-election on the next outing? The stage has been reached where it is glaringly obvious that this Government do not give two raps about rural areas. The Minister indirectly admitted that here a few moments ago. He stated that if the Government were doing well they would get two out of three. But the Government could do well in Dublin city and do very badly in the rest of the country. It would appear from this Bill that the Ireland of the future will consist of a Parliament that will have one-third of its representatives from Dublin city, a Dublin-orientated Government and Parliament believing that this country ends at Glasnevin cemetery—and I do not mean in the cemetery.

That is the type of Parliament the Minister is manipulating for the future. He will defend his actions but no one can explain to the satisfaction of the people why 13 three-seater constituencies are being provided in Dublin and why a four-seater constituency has been provided in Dún Laoghaire. It is obvious that the only consideration of the Minister in devising that constituency was the election on a two-to-one ratio of Government Deputies. It is a pity the Minister would not admit that and let us pass on.

Mr. Yeats

Some time ago the Minister suggested that in an earlier speech I had objected to the division of Dublin into three-seat constituencies. This remark suggests that he has not understood the point I was making. I am not objecting to the division of Dublin city into three-seat constituencies. Indeed my name is added to the amendment we are discussing which leaves Dublin city divided into three-seat constituencies. I do not object to this; I do not fear the result which will stem from this; but I do object to the Minister doing this in a cold, calculated effort to secure political party advantage.

The Minister has stated, and not for the first time, that his only motive in framing this Bill was to behave with absolute fairness towards all. I should like to think he believes that, but the entire manner in which this Bill has been prepared shows with absolute conclusiveness that this was far from the Minister's attitude when he framed it.

Regarding the constituency of Dún Laoghaire, the Minister has stated that it had to be left with four seats because in Dublin 43 seats had to be divided and it was reasonable to leave Dún Laoghaire with four seats. Can it be altogether a coincidence that at a time when there were eight four-seat constituencies in Dublin city and county the only one that was left was the one in which Fianna Fáil had had one seat out of four? In the other seven four-seat constituencies Fianna Fáil had two seats out of four. The Minister could have chosen any one of these eight constituencies. The one he chose was the one where his side had three out of four seats. I do not believe for a moment that this was mere coincidence nor do I accept the Minister's proposition that Dublin city and county had, inevitably, to be given 43 seats.

Mr. Tully

Sorry, I did not say that. I said that I could have given them more.

Mr. Yeats

But the Minister has given them 43 seats.

Mr. Tully

I could have given them two more.

Mr. Yeats

No. The Minister said that once it was accepted that Dublin was to have 43 seats then Dún Laoghaire is on a wing and should be left at four, but the point I am making is that there was no necessity to give Dublin 43 seats. The Minister said he could have given them two more. That is all right, but let us look at it another way. He could also have given them one less. Take, for example, the population of Dublin city and county, in which one includes Dún Laoghaire—the population is approximately 852,000 from the census of 1971—and they were allotted, as the Minister has said, 43 seats. The province of Munster also, by a coincidence, has 43 seats in this Bill. Yet we find that the population of Munster in the 1971 census was 882,000, that is 30,000 more than Dublin city and county and yet it has the same number of seats. Could one not very reasonably suggest therefore, to the Minister that he might have given Dublin 42 seats rather than 43 seats instead of giving it the same number as the entire province of Munster? There is nothing sacrosanct at all about this figure of 43 seats which enabled one of eight four-seat constituencies to be naturally chosen for four seats instead of three. Senator McGlinchey very wisely pointed out that the Minister could not have given Dublin, from his point of view, two more seats because they would have been seats for Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Tully

There would have been 15 constituencies if I had given them two more.

Mr. Yeats

If they had been given two more there would have been three four-seat constituencies instead of only one.

Mr. Tully

There would have been 15 three-seaters.

Mr. Yeats

It would have meant, for example, that the Minister's constituency of Meath would have had three seats instead of four.

Mr. Tully

I am surprised at a man of the Senator's intelligence making that kind of remark.

Mr. Yeats

The Minister will not get around what is a serious charge of gerrymandering by making smart cracks of that kind.

Mr. Tully

That is not a smart crack.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Senator Yeats to continue.

Mr. Yeats

No matter what the Minister may say there is no doubt about the fact that Senator McGlinchey has made a very strong point. Equally if the Minister were to bring Dublin down from 43 seats to 42 seats this would have meant taking a seat from Dún Laoghaire and making 14 three-seat constituencies instead of 13 three-seaters and one four-seat constituency. That would have meant a Coalition loss. In his efforts, as he puts it, to be fair to all and unfair to none, the Minister mixed what I might describe as the optimum figure of 43 seats for Dublin which he considered would be satisfactory from the point of view of the Coalition side. Any more would mean additional Fianna Fáil seats; any less would have meant Coalition losses.

The Minister has said—if he were to be consistent in this one would have to accept that it was a good point—that he divided Dublin into three-seat constituencies on the basis, and he quoted Deputy Noel Lemass on this, that if you have three-seat constituencies this is a help in obtaining a Government majority. This is not a point that I would have thought I would hear from the Minister. It is a point, as Senator Eoin Ryan has already pointed out, which those of us who object to proportional representation inevitably must support. If you cannot abolish proportional representation—and alas I am afraid we will not now ever see an end to it— the best you can do is at least to have as many three-seat constituencies as possible in order to try and get a decisive result in an election. This is a legitimate point. It is a legitimate basis on which any Minister for Local Government might well prepare a Bill of this kind. I am surprised to see the Minister accepting this point having so long and valiantly fought in favour of proportional representation. Nonetheless I accept that it is a good point, but unfortunately in this Bill the Minister has not been consistent. He has divided Dublin city and county into as many three-seat constituencies as he could conceivably fit but of the 24 three-seat constituencies outside Dublin city and county he has eliminated 12. He has eliminated the 12 not on any basis of fairness to all and of unfairness to none but on the basis of naked party advantage.

For example we find that in the 12 three-seat constituencies which exist at present and on which the last general election was fought, in those that were eliminated in this Bill, in ten out of 12, there were sufficient votes to elect two Fianna Fáil Deputies out of three. In only two out of the 12 was there a Coalition majority of two out of three. On the other hand if one considers the 12 three-seat constituencies outside Dublin that remain, what do we find? We find in eight out of the 12 that a majority of Coalition Deputies were returned in the last general election, two out of three, and in only four was there a Fianna Fáil majority. In the Minister's quest for fairness to all and unfairness to none he has eliminated by and large those 12 three-seat constituencies where Fianna Fáil were strongest and has on the whole maintained those in 12 three-seat constituencies where Fianna Fáil were weakest.

On the other hand in Dublin, where in the last general election— though I think not today—Fianna Fáil were weaker than in other parts of the country, he has adopted this policy of universal three-seat constituencies. There is no consistency in this except the consistency of a man who is preparing a Bill of this kind in what has already been described as a quasi-judicial capacity with the deliberate design to do the utmost possible political harm to Fianna Fáil. There is no consistency of approach with regard to these three-seat constituencies. I would accept that it was a perfectly legitimate and reasonable point to have as many three-seat constituencies as possible, but what the Minister has done is to have three-seat constituencies where his side is short and to eliminate them where Fianna Fáil were strong.

The Minister has said over and over again—and one must accept this as obviously true—that no one can control how the electorate will vote. If they want to vote for Fianna Fáil, they will. If they want to vote for a Coalition, they will. But what he has done with the utmost calculation and with the utmost deliberation has been, so far as was reasonably possible, to ensure that where his side is strong there will be constituencies with an uneven number of seats, either three or in two cases five, and that where Fianna Fáil are strong there will be seats with an even number of four seats. There are exceptions. The Minister quotes his own constituency of Meath, which of course is cancelled out straight away by the constituency of Louth next door. I suppose even the Minister was unable to manipulate 42 constituencies, so that in each of the 42 his party would gain.

A general pattern is quite clear all over the country. Taking it as a general rule, these three-seat constituencies have been manipulated deliberately in order to do the utmost possible damage to Fianna Fáil. That is what the Minister apparently means by "fairness to all".

Mr. Tully

I have respect for Senator Yeats's high IQ and therefore I assume that he should be able to understand all the aspects of a matter such as this. Therefore I can only assume—and I dislike having to say this because I have regard for Senator Yeats—that it appears he has deliberately left out an element which he must know has a very big bearing on the way in which the constituencies were operated throughout the country.

I do not wish to follow him around the country districts but would merely make a comment in passing. There was a lot more to be taken into account than simply the question of who got the majority of votes in a constituency, if that was taken into account at all. We also had to have regard to the county boundaries and this is something I want to discuss——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Tully

There is no doubt at all but that the last time the constituency boundaries were torn apart there was a very bad job done on them. In my office in the Custom House I have the evidence to prove that it was proposed to tear the country apart and to make the breaches of county boundaries far greater than they had been even under Mr. Boland, when he was Minister for Local Government. Having this knowledge, it is difficult to take the suggestion from Fianna Fáil Senators that I am doing something which I should not do. I am quite happy that the division of the seats in Dublin was done fairly. Senator Yeats referred to the fact that the Press has been favourable to the Coalition, but this is something which alters. One day they are favourable and the next day they are unfavourable as the Fianna Fáil Government found also. One does not win elections by manipulating constituencies and Fianna Fáil know this— perhaps better than we do.

In Dublin city and county and in Dún Laoghaire the arrangements have been made. I was interested in Senator Lenihan's comparison with the corporation and county areas. If he looks at the new corporation areas in particular, he will find that they fit almost exactly over the new ones that will be in operation on 18th June, when there will be a local election. This is a great idea because it means that the representation will be almost identical.

Again I do not wish to take Senator Yeats down through the country constituencies, but I wish to show how utterly ridiculous are some of the suggestions made. There is, for instance, one amendment which increases to such an extent the number of people in the constituency that it would be completely contrary to the Constitution to allow it. Senator Yeats should remember that not alone have we to take into consideration what the Constitution says, we also have to take into consideration what the court says: Taking the two together, the division of the constituencies and allocation of seats was fair. I repeat that it was not my job, nor do I claim it was my job, to pick out areas where Fianna Fáil could win seats.

Mr. Killilea

It was your job?

Mr. Tully

It was not my job. My job was to divide constituencies fairly, and that I claim to have done. This is something which I cannot understand, particularly when it comes from people who might be regarded as having a fairly high IQ. It is possible to pick certain counties on their own, forget about the remainder, and make them three-seaters or four-seaters. However one must always take into consideration the areas around that county and this poses the question of what one does with the adjoining constituency.

Senator Aylward referred to Kilkenny. Kilkenny would make a constituency on its own but if that were done it would upset the whole existing pattern. It would upset the whole pattern of every other constituency. Some people appear to have completely forgotten what exactly it means to draw up a constituency.

It has been suggested that there are three or four other constituencies in Dublin where I could have made a four-seater if I had wished, and that this four-seater if it existed would give Fianna Fáil an extra seat because they had a majority of votes. This is suggesting—Senator Yeats made this suggestion, at which I am surprised—that I should have looked around the city and said: "Now, where can I get Fianna Fáil an extra seat?" and picked that and made it a four-seater.

Mr. Yeats

Around the city?

Mr. Tully

Yes, in the city. Maybe the Senator thinks it is impossible for Fianna Fáil to win an extra seat anywhere in the city. If he does, that is another matter.

Mr. Yeats

The Minister is thinking of somebody else.

Mr. Tully

Senator Yeats suggested that there were areas in the city where on the last showing Fianna Fáil could have won a seat in the Dublin area, but that I could in fact——

Mr. Yeats

I did not deal with that matter at all.

Mr. Tully

I will not argue with the Senator, but perhaps if he reads the debates he will see what exactly he said. That is what I took him to say but perhaps I am wrong and, if so, I apologise. It is not my job to pick out an area and deliberately arrange it so that Fianna Fáil should win a seat.

Mr. E. Ryan

Nobody suggested that.

Mr. Tully

If that is not the suggestion, would somebody please tell me what is suggested? I have perfectly reasonable proposals with regard to seats in the Dublin area and in Carlow-Kilkenny but half a dozen Senators suggested that these are wrong. As far as I can find out, the only reason they are wrong is that I drew them up and they did not. The arguments have been contradictory. Hardly any two arguments followed the same lines.

Mr. Lenihan

The Minister has not answered my point.

Mr. Tully

I do not know which point Senator Lenihan is referring to.

Mr. Lenihan

I have repeated it twice and I shall repeat it for a third time, when the Minister sits down.

Mr. Killilea

Not knowing the intricacies of the Dublin area, I should like to refer to the point made by the Minister in his reply. He said it was his job to arrange the constituencies fairly. I accept that. But from what I can gather, having listened to Senator Lenihan and others, it appears they have made a suggestion which is far more fair than the Minister's suggestion. In one statement the Minister said that the people of Celbridge were of the same type as the Dublin people. Then Celbridge and Maynooth, are included in Dublin. The point Senator Lenihan has made is this. He has given a list, in the amendments, of one five-seater, two four seaters and nine three-seaters which will include all of the county of Dublin, Dublin city and no more. There will be no breach of a county boundary in it.

The Minister says he has been fair. I say the Minister has not given a valid reason for what he has done in this Bill. Our case seems to be far more valid than his case, because he does absolutely nothing except ramble from Dublin to other constituencies and bring party politics into it. He has done that on several occasions throughout the debate so far. It was his point that the people of Kildare are of the same type and of the same county affiliation as the people of Dublin that brought me to my feet, because, being a country Senator, to me a Dublin person is a Dublin person.

There are terms used throughout the country for Dublin people. Recently on television we listened to a Dublin man describing Dublin speech. Such speech would never be used, I am sure, in Celbridge. I doubt if it would be used in Bray. I doubt if it would be used in Blessington or even in Maynooth. To think of the people of those four areas as having the same cultural structure as people from the Liberties, Ballybough, North Wall or Ringsend is not a very fair comparison, and it is not right for the Minister to say publicly that the people of Celbridge are the overflow of the people from Dublin and that they are in fact Dublin people. Those are the words the Minister used here in this House.

The amendments put forward by Senators Lenihan, Ryan and Yeats seem to me far more fair because they keep Dublin county and Dublin city as one unit. It is above party politics. The idea behind Senator Lenihan's amendment was to make Dublin a single unit. One five-seater, two four-seaters and nine three-seaters, bearing in mind that you are keeping the county and the city as one unit, is a far better idea than those 14 three-seaters and one four-seater, when you have to break out of the county in order to make it up.

The onus is on the Minister to prove to this and the other House that what he is saying is more valid than what we have said in our amendments. The onus is on the Minister now to validate his argument in a much stronger fashion than he has been doing to date. His reply has always been that if the Coalition do well they will get two seats out of three and if they do not do well they will get one out of three. The point I gather from that is—and he is making it quite clearly—that this Bill is made to keep the Coalition in power. But it is up to the Coalition to play another part in order to do so and that is to try to govern the country in a reasonable fashion.

I do not think that is a valid argument against the argument put forward by the Opposition. We have arrived at the stage where party politics should not play such an important part in this Bill. There must be more fundamental and basic principles behind this Bill than merely keeping in power the National Coalition Government.

Mr. Yeats

The Minister is not here at present, so in a way it is a waste of time answering him. However, I will do so for the record. He apparently completely misinterpreted what I had to say about the Dublin three-seat constituencies. He suggested that my feeling was that he should have arranged the three-seat constituencies in Dublin in such a way that in areas where Fianna Fáil were strong they would get two seats out of three. Of course I never made any suggestion or said anything which could have lent itself to an interpretation of this kind. I know Dublin well enough to know that, even if we were to embark on such an exercise, it would be utterly impossible to have any kind of a conception as to how one street would vote.

The point I made was a much simpler one, one which deserves an answer from the Minister. But I am afraid, judging by form to date, we are not going to get an answer from the Minister. The point I made is essentially a simple one: in Dublin, where in the last election—though not, I suspect, in the next—the Coalition were strong and Fianna Fáil were relatively weak, he made as many three-seat constituencies as he was able, whereas in the rest of the country he eliminated, quite contrary to this principle of his in Dublin a large number of three-seat constituencies and in particular eliminated those where Fianna Fáil were strong.

The Minister said I should have realised it is not possible to have three-seat constituencies all over rural Ireland because there were county boundaries and so on. I accept that. Everyone knows that. But the point we are making on this Bill is that, while on the one hand the Minister is telling us that the fair, right and proper thing to do was to have as many three-seat constituencies as possible in Dublin, on the other hand the Minister has in a selective kind of way maintained or eliminated three-seat constituencies in the rest of the country, depending almost exclusively on the political character of those constituencies.

As I pointed out, out of 24 three-seat constituencies outside Dublin city and county the Minister eliminated 12, and of the 12 he eliminated no less than ten had sufficient votes at the last election to get a Fianna Fáil majority and only in two did the Coalition have a majority. In the 12 that he kept, the political situation is reversed. Of those he kept, in eight there was a Coalition majority at the last election, and only in four was there a Fianna Fáil majority. That is the objection we have to this procedure. The Minister is adopting one principle in regulating the constituencies in Dublin and violating that principle in a most selective fashion in the rest of the country.

That is why we maintain that in this Bill, particularly with regard to the Dublin area, the Minister has been engaged in a crude exercise of gerrymandering. That is the burden of our complaint on this Bill, and it is one to which the Minister has made no effort to reply. He has made glib statements. He has misinterpreted, I think, sometimes deliberately, what has been said. He has spoken about mysterious files in his office in the Custom House. What he has not done is to come in here defending his own Bill, justifying what is in it, explaining the reason for it and answering the arguments being put forward here. He has taken every possible step to avoid having to discuss his own Bill.

Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand part of the Schedule."

The Committee divided: Tá, 26; Níl, 13.

Tá

• Barrett, Jack.
• Blennerhassett, John.
• Burton, Philip.
• Butler, Pierce.
• Deasy, Austin.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• Fitzgerald, Jack.
• Halligan, Brendan.
• Harte, John.
• O'Brien, Andy.
• O'Brien, William.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Toole, Patrick.
• Higgins, Michael D.
• Iveagh, The Earl of
• Kennedy, Fintan.
• Kilbride, Thomas.
• Lyons, Michael Dalgan.
• McAuliffe, Timothy.
• McCartin, John Joseph.
• Mannion, John M.
• Moynihan, Michael.
• Owens, Evelyn.
• Sanfey, James W.
• Walsh, Mary.
• Whyte, Liam.

Níl

• Aylward, Bob.
• Brennan, John J.
• Browne, Patrick (Fad).
• Cowen, Bernard.
• Dolan, Seamus.
• Garrett, Jack.
• Keegan, Seán.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• McGlinchey, Bernard.
• Ryan, Eoin.
• Ryan, William.
• Yeats, Michael B.

Tellers: Tá, Senators Halligan and Sanfey; Níl, Senators Garrett and W. Ryan.

Question declared carried.

Amendment declared lost.

Question proposed: "That the entry in the Schedule in regard to constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny stand part of the Schedule."

Question put and agreed to.

Mr. Lenihan

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 4, to delet the entry relating to the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan and substitute the following:

Name	Area	of Number of Members
Cavan	The administrative county of Cavan, except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Monaghan;	Three
	and in the administrative county of Meath the district electoral divisions of; Killeagh, Oldcastle, Moylagh, Stonefield, Knocklough, Crosskeys, Crossakeel, Killallon, Ballinlough, Boherboy, Kilskeer, Burry, Loughan, Castle- keeran, Trohanny, Moybolgue, Newcastle, Moynalty, Newtown, Girley, Grennanstown, Stahalmog.
Monaghan	The administrative county of Monaghan;	Three
	and in the administrative county of Cavan the district electoral divisions of: Shercock, Taghart, Lisagoan. Enniskeen, Kingscourt;
	and in the administrative county of Meath, the district electoral divisions of: Ardagh, Drumcondra, Killary, Grangegeeth, Posseckstown, Nobber, Carrickleck, Kilmainham, Cruicetown, Castletown, Rathkenny, Donaghpatrick, Stackallan.

Mr. Lenihan

This group of amendments is being taken in conjunction with the proposals in the Schedule to the Bill as they relate to the Counties, taking them in county terms or constituency terms, of Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Meath. These are the four counties involved. The Minister's proposal is to have a five-seat constituency of Cavan-Monaghan, a four-seat constituency of Louth and a four-seat constituency of Meath. The amendments provide for, as it is at present, two three-seat constituencies in Cavan and Monaghan, under amendment No. 2; to preserve County Louth as a four-seat constituency in amendment No. 12; but in amendment No. 15 we seek to have Meath as it is at present, a three-seat constituency. These are briefly the purposes of our three amendments in this group.

What we have done is to follow the pattern of existing constituencies. We have an existing constituency of Cavan, with three seats. We have an existing constituency of Monaghan, with three seats. We have an existing constituency of Meath, with three seats. We want three seats in that constituency. Therefore there is a logical pattern in our amendments that seeks to maintain the present three-seat situation in regard to the three counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Meath. Louth, it is agreed, is inescapably a four-seat constituency. There are only minor differences between our amendments and the Schedule in regard to the County of Louth. Louth with the increased population of Dundalk and Drogheda, must get four-seat status.

I should like to know from the Minister why he is making a change in the existing three-seat arrangement in regard to the other three counties. Why go to the trouble and the annoyance? In particular why flout the three-seat principle that has been so vigorously sustained over the past few hours in regard to Dublin city and county? Why flout that principle where it exists as of now and not just as of now but for some substantial period in the past?

We have had a situation where Cavan and Monaghan have had a separate constituency status. It was so to enable Cavan and Monaghan to be three-seat constituencies in the last election that rearrangements with Meath and with Louth were necessary. There is a very glaring inconsistency here. The Minister has breached, as we saw under the last group of amendments, Dublin city and county as a unit for the first time since the formation of the State. He has decided not to fit constituencies within the boundaries of Dublin city and county but instead to breach adjoining counties such as Kildare and Wicklow. Here now the Minister goes into reverse. This is what my colleague, Senator Yeats, referred to earlier on— the glaring lack of consistency in the Minister's approach to this problem. He could have maintained the three-seat situation if he was logical about it. The Minister went to great pains to maintain it in Dublin, even to the extent of bringing in for the first time adjoining Leinster counties to fill up Dublin three-seat constituencies. The Minister should follow a recognisable pattern and should try to do as Minister what an independent commission or tribunal would do.

The logical extension of the Minister's reasoning, as given to us here by himself over the past few hours in regard to Dublin city and county, would have been to retain County Cavan as a three-seat constituency, County Monaghan as a three-seat constituency, Louth as a four-seat constituency—which was inevitable and could not be changed under any circumstances by reason of the rapid acceleration of population in that county—and Meath as a three-seat constituency. It is quite open to the Minister by relatively minor adjustments to maintain the existing situation in those four counties with the inevitable addition of one seat to Louth. Instead of doing that the Minister proceeds to amalgamate Cavan and Monaghan, creating a most unwieldy five-seat constituency and he proposes to make Meath a four-seat constituency. It is rather interesting when one sees the Taoiseach nicely settled, nestled and cushioned in the four-seat constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, where he is guaranteed to get another Fine Gael man—he hopes—in support of him, and to see similarly nestled, cushioned, and protected the Minister for Local Government in the four-seat constituency of Meath, where inevitably in that four-seat constituency he himself will be safe, sound, cushioned, cossetted and forever protected. I happen to know the figures in regard to four-seat and three-seat constituencies, having myself had a very salutary exercise in that respect. We all know well that, whereas 40 per cent can get a party two seats out of four, it takes 50 per cent to get two seats out of three.

We have here a situation where, sticking out like a sore thumb, violence is done to principle in order to secure a four-seat constituency in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown for the Taoiseach and a four-seat constituency for the Minister for Local Government in County Meath. Dún Laoghaire is the only four-seat constituency in the whole of Dublin city and county. In this group that we are now discussing Meath is being made a four-seat constituency. This is an existing three-seat constituency that could have been retained with minor adjustments. There are also existing three-seat constituencies in Cavan and Monaghan which, with minimal change, could also have been retained.

What the group of amendments that we have down here seek to do is to maintain the existing situation with very minor adjustments. I will not go down through the electoral divisions involved, but anybody familiar with the geography and topography of the area can see the situation for themselves. That in effect is what is sought. The existing constituency of Meath should remain a three-seater. The existing constituency of Monaghan should remain a three-seater. The existing constituency of Cavan should remain a three-seater, and Louth would take its inevitable extra seat and become a four-seater.

That is a very logical approach. It retains the present constituencies which the people have got used to. Cavan and Monaghan were always separate constituencies and always had three seats. In fact, Cavan at one time had four seats. With very little change the Minister—and this is in accordance with the Minister's declared support for the principle of three-seat constituencies—could have adopted a scheme along the lines of what we propose here. There may be adjustments which the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary have in mind. There may be some reason why the present scheme in that area was not retained. If so, we have not heard it. It is not enough to engage in hectoring rhetoric here in regard to the arguments we put forward in a rational manner.

In regard to the last amendments, I had to get up on three occasions and I put the argument simplistically. I concentrated on one central point on the previous group and that is: would the Minister tell me why he could not have fitted our scheme or something like it, in Dublin city and county without breaching the boundary of Dublin city and county, a rational scheme, which gave him nine three-seaters, two four-seaters and a five-seater?

He refrained from answering that basic central point and instead went into all sorts of rhetorical diversions.

Similarly in this case, I shall try to put a simple straightforward question. Is there any reason which can be advanced by the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary why there was not a minimal change in this part of the country to accord with the existing situation which has been there for a number of years? I am well aware of the fact that the only real change from the demographic point of view has been the population increase in County Louth. That is the only real change that could not be fitted in to retain the existing situation.

Quite simply the new population situation in the four county areas of Louth, Meath, Cavan and Monaghan could have been met by retaining the present constituency in Monaghan, the three-seat constituency in Cavan, the three-seat constituency in Meath, giving an extra seat to Louth. There would have been very little trouble caused and justice, along with being done, would appear to have been done.

Mr. Dolan

I endorse what has been so ably said by Senator Lenihan on this amendment. In the amendment there are four counties involved —Louth, Cavan, Monaghan and Meath. The total population of Louth is 74,951, Cavan 52,618, Monaghan 46,242 and Meath 71,729, making a total of 245,550 for the four counties. In the past we had a three-seat constituency in Cavan and a three-seat constituency in Monaghan. Under this new arrangement it seems we are destined to lose a seat. That is a serious matter in any area but more so in a rural area.

It would not be unreasonable to expect the Minister to top up the counties along the Border, such as Cavan and Monaghan, from the adjoining counties if the population had decreased. This was done on a previous occasion so as to ensure they would not lose their present representation of three seats for each county. Amalgamating the two counties will mean that we have only five seats and less representation for that very large geographical area. It is very necessary for counties such as Cavan and Monaghan—these counties belong to the North Eastern Development Association and have decreased in population over a number of years and have only now begun to recover—to have adequate representation. It is wrong to decrease their representation by cutting them down to a five-seat constituency.

It would hardly be justifiable to argue that Louth should be made a three-seater because its population has increased. Louth now has become the port county for Cavan and Monaghan. Quite a lot of our raw material is being exported through the seaside towns of Louth as it is rather congested to come through Dublin city because the road from our constituency to Dublin has not been improved in the last 30 years. Since the people in Dublin did not wake up to the fact, we have moved our custom elsewhere.

It is unjustifiable that this unnatural division should have taken place in this manner. I am a native of County Cavan. We have close associations with County Monaghan and County Meath. There was one occasion in County Meath when two brothers were playing on the County Cavan team and a third brother was on the Meath team. There is not that great difference between various counties, especially those north of the Boyne. Meath in ancient times belonged to Leath Owinn or the northern half of Ireland. A slice of County Meath was taken away on a previous occasion. We get on remarkably well together.

There would have been no difficulty in applying the same method at present. We have put down an amendment through which that could have been accomplished. It would not have depressed County Meath in any way. It would still have been a three-seater. Under the new arrangement we are losing in the rural areas. I can see no reason why this should have happened. I do not wish to be personal to the Minister, but other people have stated that he made a four-seater of County Meath possibly because he is a Deputy for the area. I have never said he would not get elected in a three-seat constituency in County Meath. At the same time, I and my colleagues cannot be blamed for thinking that the position has been made much easier by having made County Meath a four-seater. In that way it will probably be a gain.

Apart from those remarks I do not intend to discuss the political implications. Apart from what effect these changes may have on future Governments, we are losing a representative from that area irrespective of whether he is Fianna Fáil, Labour or Fine Gael. This is the point which is most annoying to people living in the country areas and the western seaboard. Any Minister for Local Government or any commission for revising constituencies should have had regard to the fact that it is much easier to meet constituents and get from one end to the other in built-up areas. They have a tremendous advantage over the rural areas because they have good schools, universities, better roads, street lighting and various things which we do not have.

Our effort in this amendment is to try to remedy that situation. It is not for the sake of being awkward that we put forward this amendment. We firmly believe that the rural parts should not lose out in such matters. It should not take a greater number of people in the rural area than in the city area to elect a Deputy.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

There are just two points I should like to make in connection with this group of amendments. All of us saw that the Minister was put under the lash for about three hours because of proposing three-seat constituencies in Dublin city and various angles of attack were used in relation to the matter. Now we find an excellent example of Fianna Fáil constituency in that the Minister is now being criticised because he has not continued the three-seat constituencies in these areas.

Senator Lenihan made a point which may be of some importance if one thinks about it. He suggested that the Minister should approach this as far as possible on the basis that it would be approached by some independent or judicial commission. I suppose that is a reasonable case to put forward. It is also reasonable to suggest that where there is a broad concensus of view with regard to constituencies between an out-going Government and an in-coming Government, by and large that is the kind of approach which would probably be made by an independent boundary commission if it was established. In connection with this group of constituencies which we are discussing, possibly some of the Members opposite may have overlooked the information which the Minister gave the House in concluding the Second reading discussion. I should like to call their attention to the Seanad Official Report of 11th April at col. 997, where the Minister stated:

In relation to Cavan and Monaghan I should like to make it clear that the proposals which the Fianna Fáil Government had before they went out of office or, if they do not like to call them proposals, the suggestions they had written down and put on tapes were that Cavan and Monaghan would be a five-seater constituency with a four-seater in Louth, almost exactly as I have it.

That apparently was the idea of the outgoing Fianna Fáil Government. When they considered this particular group of constituencies and what was suitable and appropriate so far as County Cavan and County Monaghan were concerned, the answer they came up with was that there should be one five-seater constituency for Cavan and Monaghan. That is what the Minister is doing; that is the broad concensus, that is the kind of thing an independent boundary commission would find.

Mr. Dolan

Where did this statement come from? I was not clear regarding the suggestion that these constituencies had already been drawn up and decided upon.

Mr. Farrelly

Being one of the people very much concerned, are we talking about three constituencies— Cavan, Meath and Monaghan? That is the way I found the constituencies prior to the 1969 revision. I happened to be one of those affected badly by that revision. I am amused to hear Senators on the other side of the House talking about county boundaries. The next parish to the one in which I live, where the Minister for Local Government was born, is in three constituencies because of the revision of Kevin Boland—part in Meath, part in Monaghan and part in Cavan. These people tell us now that the electoral area of Kells will be in Meath and that the electoral area of Slane should still be in Cavan and Monaghan.

I represent the electoral area of Kells and this is in three constituencies. I live in the constituency of Monaghan at present. I can see no reason why the Minister should change his views on the way he has divided those zones. Cavan and Monaghan through the drop in population have been reduced to a five-seat constituency. Meath, with a growth in population, and Louth are entitled to four with little additions from outside. Meath got an extra bit from Kildare —a parish or so is all they needed. Louth needed about the same from Monaghan and they are two four-seat constituencies. Senator Lenihan stated that the Minister has made a safe seat for himself. The Minister has made a safe seat for Fianna Fáil on the figure for County Meath.

Mr. Keegan

The Minister does not think so.

Mr. Farrelly

Of course he does. On the figures in the last three elections, unless there is a very big change there is a second seat for Fianna Fáil in Meath and those fellows over there know this well. This is a fair revision of the constituencies and the Minister is doing a good job.

Mr. Keegan

The case for this amendment has been ably made by Senator Lenihan. Throughout this Bill there has been great inconsistency. Why does the Minister think that three-seaters are the best for Dublin and at the same time try to make the case that a five-seat constituency in a rural area is a better idea than a three-seater? There is no logic in that argument. Because of their geographical location and the difference in contour and of the difficulty in reaching people in inaccessible areas, three-seat constituencies would be more workable in rural areas. This needs to be rectified. There is the cost of travelling and meeting constituents in rural areas, they have more problems and need more attention. It is easier in the built-up areas and their problems are not so great or so genuine.

The Minister should accept this amendment as it is reasonable and would ensure adequate representation in rural areas. Louth is a thickly populated small county and nobody will quarrel with making it a four-seater. Meath is a big county. I know it quite well as my grandfather comes from there, and taking in a piece of Kildare in order to make it a four-seater does not make the best sense. Another portion of Kildare has to be given to Dublin in order to continue making all three-seaters in Dublin. This is not wise. We should be pushing out from Dublin and ensuring greater representation in rural areas. These amendments have been presented in good faith and should be considered by the Minister.

Mr. J. Fitzgerald

I sympathise to a certain extent with Senator Dolan. Cavan and Monaghan are to be reduced from three-seater constituencies to a five-seater, but we should be logical in our arguments in relation to this. There was no other option open to the Minister to undo the carve-up carried out by the Minister for Local Government in 1969. This was not the first time the Meath constituency was carved up. It was carved up prior to the 1961 general election and it would be no harm to refresh the minds of Senators in the Opposition on this.

In the 1961 Act almost all the Trim electoral area and portion of the Dunshaughlin electoral area were put into Kildare and taken away from the County Meath constituency. Part of Westmeath was put into County Kildare. Kildare thus became a four-seat constituency under the 1961 Act. This meant that Kildare, which previously had been a three-seat constituency, with Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour each holding a seat, became a four-seater with the object of giving the fourth seat to Fianna Fáil, which duly happened.

In the 1969 carve-up we had the reverse of that situation and Kildare was reduced from a four-seat constituency to a three-seater. A very big proportion of Kildare, area-wise not population-wise, stretching from Johnstown Bridge right down to Allenwood, including Carbery, was put into County Meath and Meath still remained a three-seat constituency. To ensure that it would remain a three-seat constituency the then Minister for Local Government, Deputy Boland, put a big portion around the Oldcastle-Kells-Kilteer area, practically all the area mentioned in this amendment, into Cavan. Another portion of it, including the area in which the then Fine Gael Deputy resided, was put into Monaghan and portion of Deputy Tully's county council electoral area was put into Monaghan, together with the area in which he was born and reared.

It ill becomes the Opposition to cry crocodile tears over Monaghan and Cavan losing seats as a result of what the Minister for Local Government is doing in this Bill. It is time that was done to redress the most blatant and most deliberate gerrymander ever carried out in any constituency since this State was founded. I am glad to see it. I would be disappointed if the Minister was to accept this amendment or any portion of it because it is time that the people of north Meath had the right to vote in the county in which they were born and reared for the people who represent them even on the local authority.

I do not like going back to the past but we had to sit on the far side of the House and take slings and arrows and sneers from the former Minister for Local Government. I, personally, had to take them when I was trying to make the same case for the retention of County Meath even as a three-seat constituency, leaving Kildare as a four-seat constituency. It was done in a gerrymander to ensure that Fianna Fáil would get the extra seat in Meath and that either Fine Gael or the Labour Party would lose it. As I mentioned here the last day, it was done by taking a Deputy out of Kildare who had done brilliant work in Kildare and had brought himself from the bottom of the poll in 1961 to the head of the poll in 1965 and putting him into County Meath. He was made a martyr in County Meath to try to attain the objectives of the then Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government. We were not to call that gerrymandering at all.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Begley)

The purpose of this amendment is to transfer a seat from Meath to Cavan-Monaghan which would then become two three-seat constituencies. Counties Cavan, Louth, Meath, Monaghan and Kildare at present have 15 seats in five three-seat constituencies. The Bill allocates an extra seat to that area. Cavan and Monaghan are joined to become a five-seat constituency. Louth, with a small addition from Monaghan, will get four seats. Meath, with an addition from Kildare, will get four seats and Kildare will remain a three-seat constituency. The amendment also proposes to give the area 16 seats but changes the distribution of them. Monaghan will get a bit of Cavan and Meath to make it a three-seat constituency. Cavan will get another part of Meath to become a three-seat constituency and yet another part of Meath will go to Louth to give it sufficient for four seats. What is left of Meath gets a transfusion from Kildare and Dublin to make it a three-seat constituency. Kildare remains a three-seater. All the proposed constituencies meet the constitutional requirements in relation to the quality of representation.

Clearly the Opposition can have no serious expectation that this group of amendments will be accepted. They know, as was pointed out so ably by Senator Jack Fitzgerald, that the Minister suffered from the last revision which cut him off from his base—the same was true of Senator Farrelly—in north Meath. The share of his poll dropped from 29 per cent to 19 per cent. Presumably the Minister feels that it was his own county that was selected to be divided in four ways. In fact it is the only county which the Opposition suggested should be divided in four ways.

Under the Bill, county boundaries in this area have been preserved as far as possible within the limits laid down by the Constitution and the courts. Cavan, Louth and Meath have all had their boundaries restored. The amendments, on the other hand, seem to go out of their way to breach county boundaries.

Senator Lenihan, in opening the discussion on the amendments, talked about maintaining Cavan and Monaghan as separate constituencies but, at the same time, his amendment proposed to cut Meath up in four ways. He cannot have it both ways. The figures of population show that Monaghan and Cavan cannot be retained as three-seat constituencies without getting a slice of a neighbouring county. We avoided a lot of cutting up by putting Cavan and Monaghan together as a five-seat constituency.

Mr. McGlinchey

It is political suicide that in 1974 two counties so close to the Border should be gerrymandered in the manner set out in this Bill. One can see the hand of Mr. William Craig in this manipulation because it must be a source of tremendous satisfaction to him and to his colleagues in the Six Counties that a Government such as we have in the Republic, paying lip service to democracy, should so very close to the Border manipulate the constituencies in the manner in which Cavan and Monaghan have been manipulated.

Mr. Lyons

They are joined together.

Mr. McGlinchey

What God hath joined together the Minister believes that no man should put asunder. As a result of this, in that part of Ulster within the jurisdiction of the Republic the future ten representatives will come to this city and to this Parliament. Prior to this legislation 12 Ulstermen have sat in Dáil Éireann, and it is natural that the people in the Six Counties have condemned their electoral system for half a century, have every reason to be embarrassed. They know that one of the first acts of the British Government to bring some form of justice to the Six Counties was to change the system whereby constituencies were drawn up. It would appear that the British Government believed that to be the most blatant injustice.

An Cathaoirleach

Would the Senator inform us how this relates to the amendments under discussion?

Mr. McGlinchey

The point I am making is that the constituencies of Cavan and Monaghan are so manipulated that our friends and our foes across the Border will naturally treat our statements on the democratic process as quite insincere. The amendment before this House at the moment asks the Minister to retain a three-seat constituency in County Cavan and a three-seat constituency in County Monaghan.

The Minister has joined the counties of Cavan and Monaghan together in order to deprive another Ulsterman of his seat in an Irish Parliament, but particularly with the hope of preventing a Fianna Fáil Deputy from taking his seat. My contention is that no person in his senses living in the Six Counties, so close to the constituencies of Cavan and Monaghan, versed in the reasons why the Minister is doing this, would ever want to be politically associated with us in any way. Indeed, in the words of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I could say that no Northern Protestant in his senses would commit himself to reunification with a Tammany Hall State such as we have preserved here. Those words should never be forgotten. If the Minister for Foreign Affairs considered it necessary to use those words in that article in The Sunday Independent on 12th November, 1972, surely now he would have reason to use even stronger words to describe the Minister's rape of the counties of Cavan and Monaghan. It is quite obvious that this Government will flout the democratic wishes of the people in order to perpetuate themselves in office.

Then we find the situation where the Minister, on the one hand, deprives the people of Cavan and Monaghan of a public representative and, on the other hand, adds an extra seat to his own county of Meath. Listening to him earlier today one would get the impression that he was trying to convince us that his purpose in doing this was to provide Fianna Fáil with an extra seat. We have heard the Minister quote figures about his majority in 1961 and the way in which the constituency was interfered with afterwards. Long before County Meath was ever touched by any Fianna Fáil Minister, the Minister for Local Government lost his seat—in 1957. I suppose it is understandable that when he was obliging his colleagues in the Labour Party and his colleagues in the Fine Gael Party throughout this land, he should look after himself. I could imagine his thinking, when he set himself the task of drawing up the constituencies, and saying to himself that never again would he allow the disastrous election results, as far as he himself was concerned, of 1957 to be repeated. Even if it meant giving Fianna Fáil an extra seat he was going to look after himself.

Mr. Lyons

Are you worried about it? You will get an extra seat.

Mr. W. O'Brien

You may thank the Labour Party for getting the nomination to the Seanad.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would Senator O'Brien stop interrupting?

Mr. McGlinchey

If Senator O'Brien had not been one of the Taoiseach's mongrel foxes he might not have been dismissed as Chief Whip of the Fine Gael Party. That is what it is to be a mongrel fox.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. McGlinchey

When we come to West Limerick we will deal with Senator O'Brien. We will deal with the way he wished to try to handle the Leas-Cheann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann over many, many years.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would Senator McGlinchey continue on the amendment that is before the House?

Mr. McGlinchey

I realise fully that Senator O'Brien is ashamed to hear the official statistics as far as population ratio is concerned, because even he could not possibly justify to the people of this land why in County Meath this Government of the socalled talents have arranged an electoral system in such a way that only 19,238 people can elect a Deputy, whereas in Roscommon-Leitrim it takes 21,119. Is that giving justice to all?

Mr. W. O'Brien

Of course. According to the Constitution, it is.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I would ask Senators not to interrupt.

Mr. McGlinchey

Am I entitled at this stage to come to my own constituency?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

You are entitled to speak only on the amendment before this House.

Mr. McGlinchey

I have enough sense and intelligence to do that. It is a pity my interrupter is not endowed with the same amount of sense.

Mr. W. O'Brien

The Donegal people will give you the hammer.

Mr. McGlinchey

If I stand for the Dáil as often as Senator W. O'Brien has stood I think I will be elected.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Neither of those remarks is relevant to the amendment. Senator McGlinchey to continue, please.

Mr. McGlinchey

I want an explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary why a difference should be made in relation to Meath, not alone in providing a four-seater to ensure the Minister's re-election but a tolerance ratio which is the minimum practically required by the Constitution, whereas in the west of Ireland and particularly in the north-west of Ireland, the tolerance ration used is the maximum required by the Constitution. It is most unjust that this Government should expect 21,102 people in Donegal to elect a Deputy whereas in Meath in order to have a safe seat for the Minister a little over 19,000 people can elect a Deputy. In Roscommon-Leitrim 21,119 people elect a Deputy whereas in his native Meath the Minister has arranged it in such a way that 19,238 people elect a Deputy. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to tell me if he considers it just that in Sligo-Leitrim it takes 21,010 people to elect a Deputy whereas in the Minister's constituency of Meath it takes 19,238.

It is quite obvious that this constituency of Meath is being gerrymandered for a particular purpose. There is no point in speaking about areas that were taken out of Meath and now put back into Meath. If in the explanatory memorandum we were to read that the population per member was almost similar in every constituency in this country, then the Minister could claim with a certain amount of accuracy that the constituencies were arranged in a manner fair and just to all. But the Minister has not arranged the constituencies in this manner. He has not been fair and he certainly has not been just to all. The discrepancies in the population per member which I have outlined are so blatant that nobody who is in any way independent of the political arena would even attempt to justify what this Government have set out to achieve.

This is particularly so in constituencies close to the Border. I am sure that when this Bill was studied by some of our Unionist friends across the Border they were delighted to see in this legislation examples of gerrymandering the likes of which they in their heyday were unable to perfect. While it is true to say that they got away with it for a long time the day came when that situation changed. I believe that if the Minister were to accept the amendments before him this evening he could help prevent charges being made in the cities of Belfast and Derry, charges of unfair practices, charges of political manipulation by people who would attempt to justify their own actions in 50 years. I think it is an error of judgment on the part of this Government that they should allow a situation to arise in this legislation which deprives the ancient and historic province of Ulster of two Dáil Deputies. Even at this late stage I would appeal to the Minister to amend the situation, and if he does I believe that there would be rejoicing in a part of this country by people who are ashamed and embarrassed by this blatant example of gerrymandering.

Mr. Tully

I am sorry I was not in for all of the contributions which were made on this section. This particular group of amendments is one on which in the other House I showed that the people who had put them in had not got the foggiest notion about what was being effected by the amendments.

Senator McGlinchey talked about me looking after my own seat. How many times have I repeated that I had 1,000 votes over a Fianna Fáil man and on the previous occasion I had 500 votes? Before the gerrymandering which was done by Fianna Fáil in 1969 I headed the poll at over 1,000 over the quota. I do not want to repeat this because I have said it so often I feel I am annoying Senator Yeats and I am sure he is getting a bit tired of this. This was before all this area was taken away, and before that I lost my seat.

I am a great believer in democracy. I believe that the electorate are entitled to put out of Dáil Éireann and put out of this House people who they think are not representing them properly. They are entitled to realise their mistake if they have made one and put those people back again and honour them by having them head the poll. This is what was done. I stood for election and got elected to the Dáil. There is a lot in getting elected to the Dáil. I am quite sure that the people from my constituency were satisfied. The suggestion that I put a fourth seat in there for the purpose of ensuring that I would retain my seat is too ridiculous; it is an abusive phrase which some of the Opposition Senators find useful.

May I refer to the question of the four-seater there, where, according to the way the cards have been falling down through the years, Fianna Fáil should win the fourth seat? Instead of the Fianna Fáil Opposition saying: "Look, this thing is now levelling it off." As, indeed, Senator Yeats did say in reference to Louth, they are looking behind them to see was there a reason for it being done. The reason was this, that before this constituency change took place, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth were three-seaters, but, Cavan was only a three-seater because it had a very sizeable portion of Meath —which, for Senator McGlinchey's information, is in Leinster—added on to it. Monaghan was able to have a three-seater because it had a sizeable portion of Meath-Louth, which is also in Leinster, added on to it. This is something which is apparently being ignored by the Opposition. They do not like this being brought up. They say: "You are taking away two seats from Ulster, a seat from Cavan and a seat from Monaghan". We are not, because there was a very sizeable portion of Leinster attached.

In regard to the amendment which was suggested here, I should like to give a run down on the North Meath area which I know very well as I was born and reared there. I will show how ridiculous this whole idea is. I do not blame the Senators here because they could not know what we are doing, but, it having been pointed out in the Dáil, I would expect they would not make the same mistake again here.

I was born in a village called Carlath in north Meath. The last Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government, who divided constituencies in 1969, divided that village and gave half of the area to the west of it to Cavan and he gave the other half to Monaghan. Then he sliced off the end of the village and left the rest of us in County Meath. Quite a substantial amount of my support came from that area and he said to himself: "That has fixed him." Although they did that, I still got elected to the Dáil.

In the present proposals there is an amendment which is put in here in the name of three Senators and which in the Dáil was in the name of three Deputies. I am sorry that Senator Dolan from Cavan and Senator Brennan from Monaghan are not here because I know that they would be very interested. The proposal is that, contrary to what many of the Fianna Fáil speakers have been trying to say, the ancient kingdom of Breffni, which was Cavan and which, as was pointed out, also included the town of Oldcastle in County Meath, was to have Oldcastle included, as it was under the old system; also included were Ballinlough, Crossakeel and Moynalty. Carnaross was taken in. Then the line came to the town of Kells, which is about ten to 12 miles inside County Meath, and it then turned right from Kells and moved right along to a place called Kilskeer; then it went south of Kells to a place called Cortown up near the town of Athboy, and doubled back again towards the Westmeath border, to a little townland called Grennanstown. Why this should be beats me. How can anyone suggest it is the right thing to put the townland of Grennanstown in along with the Cavan constituency, a narrow strip up there weaving in and out between townlands? It just beats me why it was done.

Senator McGlinchey talked of Ballintra. We will come to that later on. Having done that they then decided that they would make a three-seater constituency of Monaghan also. The first thing they did, and this is rather amusing, was, to use the phrase of Deputy Wilson, to raid the ancient kingdom of Breffni and they took out Kingscourt, Shercock and three other electoral areas in the heart of Cavan.

Having done this for the purpose of arranging a Monaghan constituency of three they then went into County Meath and moved on up through Cadamstown, Stahalmog, Castletown, into Rathkenny and in some peculiar way which I have not been able to find out—I am surprised the same mistake was repeated by the Senators as was done by the Deputies—they jumped across the Gibbstown Gaeltacht and landed in a place called Donaghpatrick, which is near Navan. They took in Donaghpatrick electoral area with Gibbstown. Then they went back to Rathkenny, Stahalmog, Castletown, Nobber and Kilmainhamwood. They called this a small compact constituency of three-seats. I think Senator Yeats, if he remembers some of the comments which were made here earlier today on the question of breaching county boundaries, will agree with me that nobody who knew that area would suggest that was a reasonable thing to do. I am afraid they do not have very much respect for the ordinary way of dealing with constituencies in this country.

Mr. Keegan

What is the ordinary way of dealing with constituencies?

Mr. Tully

The way in which it is being done in this Bill.

Mr. Keegan

The Minister is a superman.

Mr. Tully

I am just an ordinary man with a conscience and that is a change in this office.

Mr. McGlinchey

It is a pity that the stenographers cannot record the Minister's smile.

Mr. Tully

I am giving those details because it is only fair to point out that this is the sort of proposal which is made in the amendment submitted by Fianna Fáil Senators and to point out how really ridiculous their idea is. Somebody wants to know why did I not listen to reasonable argument and why did I not offer a reasonable compromise. I do not think there is any such thing as a reasonable compromise where this matter is concerned. I have put down a very fair suggestion. Incidentally, I should like to point out that Senator Yeats has his name to an amendment which includes Balscadden in County Dublin. For a man who does not believe in breaching county boundaries it is a little odd that the Meath constituency, according to his proposal, should consist of portion of Meath, portion of Dublin, portion of Kildare, a portion of Meath added to Cavan and a portion of Meath added to Monaghan.

I believe the way I drew up the constituency was very much fairer. Nobody could suggest there would be anything wrong in making Louth a four-seater. It required an extra 2,000 people to become a four-seater; therefore it was a natural. Whether Fianna Fáil had a majority or anybody else had a majority in Louth, it would be unfair not to make it a four-seater. If I could not give a three-seater on its own to Monaghan, as I could not, and I could not give a three-seater on its own to Cavan, I thought the most reasonable thing to do was to put the two together and give them a five-seater.

I want to repeat what I said in the Dáil. Those who know Cavan and Monaghan are aware that those two counties, more than any other two counties I know in this country, have a lot in common with each other— the same type of people, the same type of land, the same interests. They are well represented in the Dáil. They are very shrewd people.

Mr. McGlinchey

Why are you taking a seat from them?

Mr. Tully

I am sorry if Senator McGlinchey cannot understand. I do not think I should waste any further time trying to explain to him.

Mr. McGlinchey

May I ask the Minister a question? There are in Dáil Éireann three Cavan men and three Monaghan men. As a result of this Bill how many Ulster men can be elected to Dáil Éireann from Cavan and Monaghan.

Mr. Tully

There are many more than six Ulster men in Dáil Éireann. Cavan and Monaghan at one time had enough people living in each county to give them three representatives but under Fianna Fáil they lost more people, Cavan, in particular, than any other county with the exception of Leitrim. I hope that under a good Government, such as we have now, there will be enough people in both constituencies to allow for three and, maybe, four seats. If that situation arises, I would be delighted to see them getting their representation back. But I will not agree that we should continue to add on a bit of Leinster to the two Ulster counties for the purpose of giving an artificial representation. There will be five representatives from the two counties. Everybody in those two counties will have the right to call on one of five representatives. At present they can call on one of three.

Mr. Keegan

The Minister prefers three-seaters in Dublin but recommends five-seaters for the rural areas.

Mr. Tully

I am afraid I had to be rather unkind to the Senator on the Second Stage. I do not want to be unkind to him again. But might I explain that we can give only three seats to a constituency which has 57,000 to 63,000. We have not got that number either in Cavan or in Monaghan. Is it possible to get through the fact that we could not, without breaking up a further constituency, give them six representatives, three in each? They are getting five, so they will be well represented. As I say, the Cavan and Monaghan people are very intelligent and have been sending excellent representatives to this House and will continue to do so in the other House.

Mr. McGlinchey

But the Minister is taking a seat from them.

Mr. Tully

If Senator McGlinchey thinks that the people in north Meath and the people in west Louth who were attached to Cavan and Monaghan are not entitled to any representation, then I am taking one from them. I believe that they are as much entitled to representation in their own constituencies as anybody else. For that reason I am proposing to give four to Louth, five to Cavan-Monaghan, four to Meath and, incidentally, to give back to Meath again the portion of Meath which was taken away, not by my immediate predecessor, but by his predecessor who had the full support of the Fianna Fáil Party when he used his knife and cut up whole villages. In fact, he did better than that. There is a former Fine Gael TD in this House outside of whose door the line was drawn.

Mr. McGlinchey

The same as the Minister has done to Deputy White.

Mr. Tully

Deputy White has not complained. I can assure Senator McGlinchey that Deputy White will be back in Dáil Éireann. If Senator McGlinchey could say the same, even with a five-seater, he would be a very happy man.

Mr. McGlinchey

The Minister has stripped him of his area. He is now a streaker.

Mr. Tully

The Senator knows much more about streakers than I do. I will take his judgment on streakers because they would be more in his line. Therefore as far as those particular amendments are concerned I am satisfied that what happened was that the Senators did not do as they would give the impression they did. They did not get the members of their think-tank to tie a wet towel around their heads and stay up all night worrying what amendments should be put in which would help. They accepted those which were thrown out in Dáil Éireann and put them in here again. I am sorry Senator Lenihan was not here when I was describing the codology which was indulged in in drawing up these amendments. Not alone did they not wish the Cavan constituency to remain as it was, but they wanted to take a swipe up through County Meath, up by two towns on one side, and bring Monaghan up by two towns on the other, jumping across whole intervening areas.

One of the things which amused me, because I know every stick and stone in the area, was how the heck they proposed to bring voters from, for instance, a place called Stahalmog which had no connection with any other constituency unless, if the amendment were carried, it would be adjoining Monaghan and Meath. Yet they were sticking it on to Cavan. Maybe they have a magic wand to arrange such matters. If they have, they should use it at the next election in an effort to get a few extra seats.

Mr. Keegan

We will borrow the Minister's super intelligence.

Mr. Tully

Do not worry about that.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister has put people from Inisbofin into Lahinch.

Mr. McGlinchey

The Minister for Defence will lend his helicopter.

Mr. Tully

Many of you are very jealous of that helicopter. At least he is using it. Some of you fellows were afraid to go up in it.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would the Minister please continue on the amendment?

Mr. Killilea

He was not using it when some people thought he was using it.

Mr. Tully

That is above my head. There are amendments down which do not make sense or meaning. Why they should have been repeated again after being exposed in the other House, I do not know. Possibly the people opposite should have had a better look at the proposals. Somebody should have told them that those amendments suggesting that you could have a three-seater in Cavan and a three-seater in Monaghan do not make any sense.

Just for good measure, let me point out that there was another little streak—to use Senator McGlinchey's word—by the people who put down the amendment, because it suggested that Louth should be a four-seater with the electoral division of St. Mary's from County Meath added in. For those who do not know the electoral division of St. Mary's is Mornington, Bettystown and Laytown. Would the Senators have the idea of giving me a nice little seat in Louth? Was that what they had in mind when they put down this amendment? I know they were looking after my interests anyway. Anybody who comes here and suggests that there should be any sort of reasonable effort made to understand this sort of thing is expecting too much because it is not reasonable and neither is it fair to the Senators who were lumbered with this list of amendments which do not mean anything.

Mr. Yeats

One of the problems in discussing this Bill with this Minister is that, rather than dealing with the merits of the Bill, he spends so much of his time in trying to prove how much smarter he is than anyone else. Certainly we should not listen to instructions of the Minister on territorial matters when, quite recently, for the first time in all of recorded history, he has made the Aran Islands part of Galway city. However, he went into the usual rigmarole about how part of Ulster in the Republic had to lose seats because of Fianna Fáil mismanagement and so on. He produced this before with unequal lack of accuracy. The population of Monaghan has not decreased. It increased by 510 between 1966 and 1971, yet they lose a seat.

Mr. Tully

Go back a little further, Senator, and then you will find what happened.

Mr. Yeats

We are dealing with the census of 1971 on which the Minister's Bill is based. He went into a long song and dance about how, as a result of Fianna Fáil mismanagement, the population of Monaghan had decreased. That is not true.

The population of Donegal—I am only going to deal with it in passing as I know it is not part of this amendment—decreased by a marginal 205. It is really a static situation. Between Donegal and Monaghan, taking the two together, the population includes an overall increase but the Minister takes a piece out of each. That is his attitude to population changes. He did the same in relation to Connacht. In areas where the population was declining and where Fine Gael was strong he left them the number of seats; but in areas such as Clare and Galway, where the population had increased or where Fianna Fáil were strong, he took seats away. It is far from being the fact that in many of the areas with which we are dealing the population has declined as a result of Fianna Fáil mismanagement or for any other reason. The Minister's arrangement of the constituencies is that there is little or no relation to the number of population. Whether it has increased or decreased, they will lose seats in accordance with the crudest political considerations on the part of the Minister.

He told us, for example, that Meath had to have four seats because it had a sufficient number of people to justify that. The county of Kildare is next door to Meath, as the Minister knows better than I do. The 1971 census shows that there are more people in Kildare than there are in Meath. Yet the Minister has left Kildare with three seats and has given four to his own constituency of Meath. Why?

Mr. Tully

There is a very simple explanation for that which I shall give to the Senator in a few moments.

Mr. Yeats

I hope so.

Mr. McGlinchey

The preservation of Tully.

Mr. Yeats

There are 3,000 or 4,000 more people in County Kildare than in County Meath, yet his own county of Meath gets four seats and County Clare gets only three. He told us—and it is a matter on which we agree—that, as a result of the figures in the 1971 Census, Louth had almost within a thousand or so of the number needed for a four-seat constituency. Therefore, in all justice, he said, he had to give them four seats. Yet Louth has fewer people than County Clare. He left Clare with three-seats and gave four to Louth. He was right in giving four to Louth because, as he said, in all justice they should have four seats. It would have been absolutely ridiculous to do anything else. But why in these circumstances did he take the county of Clare, with more people in 1971 than in the whole of the County Louth, and leave them with only three seats?

Mr. Tully

Might I tell the Senator that it was not I who first split up Clare?

Mr. Yeats

I do not care one hoot what was done in 1961 or 1969 or any other year. It is time the Minister learned that he is a Minister of State, a member of an Irish Government. He is Minister for Local Government. He is coming into the Seanad with his own legislation which he has to defend. I do not care what any previous Minister has done or whether they were right or wrong. Clare, in the days before the beneficial effects of Fianna Fáil Government had become clear, did not have enough for four seats. The population of Clare has increased. As a result of the effective administration of Fianna Fáil, Clare now has enough population to have four seats.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I should like to remind Senator Yeats that the Clare constituency comes in the next amendment.

Mr. Yeats

I accept that completely but the difficulty in discussing a Bill of this kind is that the Minister takes each one separately and says: "Is it not reasonable to give them three or four and so on?" Our problem is that we have to show— and, alas it is only too easy to show —that the Minister has not been in any way consistent. Where it suits him he gives a certain number of seats to a county. Where it does not suit him in other cases, such as Clare, he does not give them the four seats to which they are entitled. In Ulster, where there is a marginal decrease in population amounting between the three counties of less than 1,100, there is a loss of two seats.

Meath has been given four seats and although the Minister may tell us he is confident of being re-elected, it is a statistical fact that it is easier to get a quota of 20 per cent of the total vote than a quota of 25 per cent. One must have some relation to these simple statistical facts of life. The arrangement set out in the constituencies covered by this amendment bear no relation to population changes. They are arranged for some reason which the Minister has not yet designed to tell us. I am not clear why, if Meath had enough people to have four seats, then the adjoining county of Kildare was not given four.

Mr. Tully

One county had to get a fourth seat. There is a song and dance being made about Meath geting four seats. Because portion of Kildare was needed to make the West Dublin constituency and already portion of Kildare was in Meath this was the easiest way of arranging the constituencies. I thought Fianna Fáil would pass a vote of thanks as they have a chance of winning a seat there. They must not like the next fellow coming up.

Mr. Yeats

We are not thinking of politics; we are thinking of justice.

Mr. Tully

Senator Yeats stated it was not the fault of Fianna Fáil that the constituencies of Cavan and Monaghan lost a seat each. I say it was. If we start with 1926——

Mr. Lenihan

We will be back to the Civil War next.

Mr. Tully

In 1926 Cavan had 82,500. In 1936 they had 77,000; in 1946 they had 70,000; in 1951 they had 56,000; in 1956 they had 51,000; in 1966 they had 54,000 and in 1971 they had 52,000. Fianna Fáil were in power for most of that time and the slide was going down all the time. Now they blame me because they lost a seat. If this county had the numbers of people they should have and which, please God, they will have, they will be entitled to three seats.

Let us take Monaghan as a comparison. In 1926 the population there was 65,000; in 1936, 61,000; in 1946, 57,000; in 1951, 55,000; in 1956, 52,000; in 1961, 47,000; in 1966, 45,732 and in 1971, 46,000. There is a slight change upwards there. With a slide from 65,000 down to 46,000, they come moaning here that they are entitled to more representation and that I am doing something drastic. It is too much to ask that this should be accepted as part of a reasonable debate.

I should like to ask one question. The Fianna Fáil Party have put down amendments. Would some member of that party explain what they propose to do with those amendments or how they expect they will be operated? The House is entitled to some explanation.

Mr. Lenihan

I am very thankful to the Minister because I was about to do so without his invitation. A Minister speaking in this House is expected to set an example in dealing with the matter being debated. There is no point in engaging in a hectoring, public meeting-type of debate in this House.

Mr. Tully

I will deal with it in my own way. The Senator may deal with his proposals in his way.

Mr. Lenihan

That is not on. It will not be accepted by rational people. The Minister has been endeavouring to debase the level of debate in this House. He raised a matter to which I want to address myself. He talked of his inability to keep the present constituency arrangements in the area under question in these amendments. He stated that this inability related to the fact that he had to go into part of the area concerned in these amendments—that is, part of Leinster—to top up the Dublin constituencies which were the subject matter of the group of amendments which we debated and on which we voted.

The Minister has invited us to explain precisely what we want and how we will go about getting it. I asked the Minister on three occasions during the debate on the previous group of amendments to make a positive contribution to the amendments put down by us in every good faith. The amendments in that group are inter-related with the amendments we have put down in this group. I will have to put it simplistically for the Minister. We must speak in words of one syllable as the Minister does not appear to be able to take a point or to answer one.

Mr. Tully

If the Senator wishes to go on that line I will take him on any time he wishes.

Mr. McGlinchey

Let the Minister keep his hair on.

Mr. Lenihan

Be a little steady and wear that crown a bit lightly. In the previous group of amendments we had nine Dublin city constituencies, of which the Minister was not aware when replying to us at an earlier stage. He did not appear to know we were debating two sections of a group of amendments in the previous debate. There are nine three-seat constituencies in what we suggest.

We then suggested that by having one four-seat constituency in South County Dublin, one five-seat constituency in Dún Laoghaire and another five-seat constituency in North County Dublin, we would be able to preserve the identity of Dublin city and county and would not be crossing county boundaries into the area about which the Minister is now talking and on which this debate is based. I asked the Minister to suggest to me on the previous debate in relation to the other group of amendments how he could accommodate himself within the territorial unit of Dublin city and county. The Minister refrained from answering that point and we voted on the group without any comment by the Minister on what I had stated. Now we have come to this group of amendments. I will speak slowly and try to get an answer, as the Minister has asked us to comment on it. The Minister would have been able to accommodate himself within the present constituency boundary, give or take a townland here and there, if he had accommodated himself within Dublin city and county in the first instance.

Mr. Tully

This is not relevant at all.

Mr. Lenihan

The Minister has stated that the main reason why Kildare is a three-seat constituency and not a four-seat constituency is that part of north Kildare had to go into County Dublin to ensure that Dublin city and county were so carved up that there would be a three-seat constituency in every part other than the comfortable four-seater surrounding the Taoiseach. There is a comfortable four-seater now surrounding the Minister for Local Government in County Meath.

Mr. Tully

At least I won a seat there.

Mr. McGlinchey

You lost one, too.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

If we had fewer interruptions perhaps we could proceed. There are too many interruptions from both sides of the House during this debate. You will all have time to reply to points made. Would Senator Lenihan continue speaking on the amendment before the House?

Mr. Lenihan

It is not the Members of the House who are creating this atmosphere in the debate, it is the Minister. I will come back to the group of amendments under discussion. If the Minister, in his urgency to establish a three-seat regime in Dublin city and county, had not gone overboard in that endeavour of hatchet work he would not find himself in the difficulty in which he now finds himself in these four counties. The Minister had it quite open to him to accept the existing constituency arrangements in these five counties were it not for the fact that he had totally prejudiced himself by reason of this completely undemocratic approach in regard to Dublin city and county. Having made that initial decision the Minister found himself totally hamstrung in regard to his operations in the five counties now under discussion.

The situation at present is that in these counties there is a three-seat constituency in County Monaghan, a three-seat constituency in County Cavan, a three-seat constituency in County Meath, a three-seat constituency in County Kildare and a three-seat constituency in County Louth. The only population increase that necessitated an extra seat in that area occurred in County Louth. The Minister knows this as well as I do. The straightforward way of doing that, give or take a townland or two, was to make four seats in County Louth. Doing the minimum of violence to the other constituencies that exist at present he could have retained a three-seat constituency in County Meath, a three-seat constituency in County Kildare, a three-seat constituency in County Cavan and a three-seat constituency in County Monaghan. Why was that not done?

It is easy for the Minister to get up here and talk of townlands that we have put incorrectly in our amendments. Basically, as the Minister knows, in parliamentary practice the party in opposition put down amendments in order to get the Government to see the point of principle involved in them. I am not saying that our amendments are perfect but I would ask the Minister to consider them and come up here—as I asked him to do in the previous group of amendments—and tell us how best he can accommodate the scheme that we have by making it more rational and doing the least possible violence to the present constituency arrangements.

In conclusion, taking this group of amendments with the previous group, this is what should have been done. If he had done so, the Minister would have appeared to the public to be doing the right thing and not to be wielding hatchets.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Before the Senator proceeds, I must remind him that the first group of amendments has been dealt with.

Mr. Lenihan

I appreciate that, but the Minister raised the matter.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I do not want any detailed discussion on the previous amendments.

Mr. Lenihan

I shall be very brief. The Minister should have approached this matter not as a person trying to fit his preconceived and grossly prejudiced political notions into a straitjacket of constituency arrangements, but in a manner where he would have to observe the constitutional requirements of 20,000, give or take a tolerance. In pursuing that objective with the least violence possible to county boundaries, he would have preserved the territorial identity of Dublin city and county and would also have preserved the existing constituencies in the group we are now discussing. County boundaries had to be breached in regard to Meath, Cavan, Louth, Monaghan and Kildare. The Minister could have preserved those three-seat constituencies and adjusted them accordingly. But he was driven into this situation because of the three-seat straitjacket situation in Dublin city. In my view the Minister is not addressing himself to what we are proposing here. I should like to hear the Minister commenting on our amendments and engaging less in political banter and political hectoring that does no justice to his case and is only an affront to the intelligence of Members on all sides of this House.

Mr. Tully

I have listened to Senator Lenihan giving me a lecture on what should be done. The trouble with Fianna Fáil is that they are attempting to prove that what was done the last time by their Minister was right. Would they please remember that I started off with the idea, preconceived as Senator Lenihan has said, that I knew from having been in the House when the Bill was passed that what was done was blatantly wrong and could not be allowed to continue. At the time this happened I said in the other House that if we ever got into power I would take the necessary steps to change the constituencies. I make no apology to anybody for changing the constituencies as they were left by the then Deputy Kevin Boland when he was Minister for Local Government, because I think that it was a very unfair distribution of seats from county to county.

For the information of those who are prepared to throw figures around but apparently do not want to get them back, if we look at figures in regard to County Meath, the figure in 1966 was 67,333 and in 1971 was 71,729. It is not correct to say that Louth shows the only increase. In fact in Louth there were 69,590 in 1966 and 74,951 in 1971.

Mr. McGlinchey

That increase occurred under Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Tully

The whole of the east coast increased in spite of Fianna Fáil rather than because of it.

Mr. McGlinchey

It was Fianna Fáil's fault.

Mr. Tully

Louth was entitled to a four-seater and they got it. The only way in which Monaghan or Cavan could be entitled to retain three-seaters would be by allowing larger slices of County Meath to be added on. Even if they were added on they could not be added on in the way in which the amendments suggest. Senator Lenihan has said that you cannot blame them. I am not blaming them. This was prepared and they put in the same amendments as they submitted in the other House. But I would blame them for the fact that it was pointed out in the other House by me that this particular set of amendments just could not work. It is a little too much to dump them in exactly as they were.

Mr. Lenihan

We have a changed set and another group that you suggested in the other House.

Mr. Tully

What I suggested is in the Bill.

Mr. Lenihan

In the western group.

Mr. Tully

What I suggested is in the Bill.

Mr. Lenihan

The amendment is in line with what the Minister suggested.

Mr. Tully

I did not suggest anything.

Mr. Killilea

We can quote the Minister on it.

Mr. Tully

Quote away!

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It can be quoted when we come to that amendment and not now. Will the Minister continue on the amendment that is before the House with fewer interruptions?

Mr. Tully

The constituency of Cavan and Monaghan has no breach of the boundary. The two counties are put together. They are getting fair representation in five seats. I think they will be perfectly satisfied with that. As far as County Meath is concerned, we have the whole county with a small portion of County Kildare and yet there was a suggestion that there should have been a portion of County Dublin added on to it. You should see some of the suggestions made by my predecessor when he was preparing the constituencies. He made Cavan-Monaghan a five-seater.

Mr. Lenihan

Will the Minister produce the record?

Mr. Tully

If the Senator wants to see it I will be glad to show it to him.

Mr. Garrett

The Minister made a remark about me.

Mr. Tully

I withdrew that. Does the Senator want me to say something more about it?

Mr. Garrett

I want the Minister to prove the statement he is making.

Mr. Lenihan

Is it in order for the Minister to make very serious statements without producing documentary evidence or referring to documentary evidence and talking about them here without any proof whatever?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Minister is in order to refer to the matter. He did advise people who wanted to see the evidence that he would produce it for them. I do not want to labour this point very much because it will stir up a lot of controversy. I should like the House——

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I ask the House not to interrupt the Chair. Please allow the Minister to continue. As I have pointed out several times tonight, this is Committee Stage and Senators can reply as often as they like. It would make for a lot more reasoned debate if there were no interruptions when Senators are speaking.

Mr. McGlinchey

The Minister is fairly good himself at interrupting.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I am not agreeing with anything Senator McGlinchey is suggesting at the moment. The Minister to continue.

Mr. Killilea

If the Minister would act in his capacity as a Minister, rather than acting in the capacity of a gerrymanderer——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Would the Senator please resume his seat and allow the Minister continue on the amendment?

Mr. Tully

It is quite obvious that a number of Senators are more anxious to shout across at me than to listen to the arguments I have made. I have told Senator Lenihan I would give him a reply. I shall make it short because if other Senators want to make a comment or want to interrupt, I do not propose to take part in a barging match with anybody on the other side of the House. I wish to say to Senator Lenihan that the amendments which have been proposed are not workable. I still believe that the proposals which I have put into the Bill are the best way to cope with the matter and I shall leave it at that.

Mr. McGlinchey

A few minutes ago the Minister told us that the population of the eastern coast rose in spite of Fianna Fáil but that the drop in population in Cavan and Monaghan was as a result of Fianna Fáil. I find it hard to believe that a man who occupies the important post of Minister for Local Government would expect to get away with a statement of that kind or would expect the Irish people to believe he thinks that Fianna Fáil were responsible for the decline in population in Counties Cavan and Monaghan, while across the boundary in Meath and Louth the population rose in spite of Fianna Fáil. This is a type of propaganda in which the Minister excels. In his defence of this gerrymandering legislation he has used propaganda of this kind on numerous occasions.

I want to make an observation. A census was taken in 1971. If Fianna Fáil's effort to reduce the population in Cavan and Monaghan in 1971 and 1972, according to what the Minister has stated, rubbed off into County Louth and if the population of County Louth happened to drop during those two years of this terrible Fianna Fáil Government by more than 100 people, then in my opinion this legislation is unconstitutional. If it were to appear that in 1974, three years since the census, there is a population drop of over 100 people in County Louth then the population ratio per member would be less than 19,123, the figure allowed in the High Court decision of 1961. Whether or not the population of County Louth dropped, it is difficult to say. County Louth is a prosperous county and has expanded considerably over the last few years, particularly as a result of Fianna Fáil's industrialisation campaign, despite what the Minister has just told us when he said that it has grown in spite of Fianna Fáil.

It is interesting to note that the population ratio per Member for County Louth is 26 people per Member more than is constitutionally possible. The Minister had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to provide the minimum area to maintain four Deputies in this county. Of course it is obvious again that Fianna Fáil have two seats out of three in this county. Nobody who is in any way politically realistic could forecast an improvement in that situation. By providing County Louth with an extra seat it is an obvious bonus to the Coalition Government: quite obviously the Coalition will gain a seat as a result of this arrangement. I find it hard to accept that any political party with any sense of justice would arrange constituencies in such a way that in the smallest county it would take 19,149 people to elect a Deputy. In my native county it takes 21,102— almost 2,000 people more per Deputy in County Donegal than in County Louth.

In Roscommon-Leitrim, 21,119 people are given the opportunity of electing a Deputy. In this legislation the Minister has provided that in County Louth almost 2,000 fewer are required. The same applies to Sligo-Leitrim.

Why is it that this situation should be allowed to exist? Why is it that the votes of almost 10,000 people in County Donegal are lost? Earlier today the Minister suggested that it was nonsense to say that there was a city bias but it is quite obvious to anyone who studies the explanatory memorandum that anywhere there is political advantage for the Minister's political party the population per Member ratio is practically at the minimum required by the Constitution and where there is no apparent political advantage for the Minister's parties the population per Member ratio is practically the highest required by the Constitution.

This is discrimination against the north-western portion of this country in particular. The Minister is using his position to ensure that in Dublin city and on the east coast and in this case County Louth it takes fewer people to elect a Duputy than on the west coast. A figure of 2,000 people per Deputy fewer in County Louth with four Deputies means that 8,000 people have that advantage over their fellow-Irishmen in other parts of this country.

Again this constituency of County Louth will not go unnoticed and the Minister's manipulations no doubt in the years ahead will be the subject of comment from our Unionist friends across the Border because the Minister in this constituency of Louth has once again proved that he is the expert, the pastmaster, as far as gerrymandering is concerned.

Mr. Killilea

A point of information, we are talking on our amendment? Just before the Minister went for his tea I was making the point that perhaps he would discuss with us across the floor our amendments and at a later stage we would deal with the Bill before us. I made a point, and it is quite unfair that it was not answered. We had made a proposal keeping Dublin city and county within that particular area. At that time no positive point was made by the Minister to show why we were wrong.

In order to bring us closer to this point we have made further amendments. All the Minister will do in reply is to introduce politics—parish pump politics—rather than discuss the actual amendments. I personally would like the Minister to tell us why our amendments are not correct. We do not seem to be able to grasp why our amendments are wrong. I thought it quite unfair that the points I made were not replied to. We have put down logical amendments. All we hear is party politics. It is as low as parish pump politics, and that is very low. For instance, Kildare has a gross population——

Acting Chairman (Mr. McCartin)

I should like to remind Senator Killilea that he rose on a point of information. We are discussing the group consisting of Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Meath.

Mr. Killilea

I agree. I rose and I said on this set of amendments as well as on the previous amendments that I asked for a logical reason why——

Mr. Tully

I have gone into great detail explaining why I considered that the amendments before the House are completely illogical. It is an area I know very well. I would accept that categorically. Senator Lenihan said that he had put down amendments for the purpose of giving further consideration to them. The Senator has asked me to prove what was put down was illogical. I have gone into great detail, more so than perhaps I should have.

Mr. Killilea

I would ask the Minister to give me a logical reason.

Mr. Tully

I have already done so. It would be repetition to go back over it again.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Killilea

No logical reason has been given by the Minister to this House to show specifically why the amendments are not correct.

Mr. Tully

Could I ask Senator Lenihan, who is a reasonable man, is it not a fact that I went into great detail, so much detail that he was getting a bit exasperated with all the areas I covered? When I was finished the Senator, in fact, said they were not claiming the amendments were perfect.

Mr. Lenihan

In this matter, as the Minister well knows, each group of amendments is interrelated with the other. That presents a difficulty because undoubtedly the illogicality of what the Minister has done here relates directly back to the group of amendments we were discussing previously, that is, the desire to put Dublin city and county into a straitjacket of three-seat constituencies with the exception of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. From that has flowed all these amendments which are now incorporated in the Schedule and to which we have put down amendments.

I am not suggesting that our amendments are perfect. The Minister is right in this respect. Fundamentally, Senator Killilea's point is very valid. I have made the point on several occasions that the Minister and the Government would have saved themselves a lot of public odium and disrespect if they had not so obviously set out to gerrymander the situation. For the first time in the history of the state boundaries are breached with regard to Dublin. If Dublin city and county were preserved by doing what we suggest or by some other arrangement incorporating a balance of nine three-seat constituencies, two five-seat constituencies and a four-seat constituency, then the Minister would be in a position where he would be doing the least possible harm in regard to the area under discussion. Then he could go on with the minimum amount of interference and change with the other constituencies in Leinster rather than dragging these counties, as witness the suburbs of Bray, Blessington, Celbridge, Maynooth and Lucan, artificially into Dublin in order to prop up the Government's blind prejudice to fit Dublin city and county into a three-seat constituency situation.

Instead of adopting some sort of irrational proposal—I am not saying ours is perfect but our suggestion of the arrangement of the constituencies within Dublin and Greater Dublin would not breach the Dublin county boundaries—the Minister could then proceed to the grouping we are now discussing and with the minimum of change on the existing constituencies effect what is the only justifiable population increase which is the increase of one in County Dublin.

Mr. Tully

The mistake the Senator is making is that he assumes I am accepting that the existing constituencies were all right. I started off knowing that the existing constituencies were all wrong and could not be more wrong than they were. I have gone into great detail in dealing with North Leinster by pointing out that not alone do I not agree with Senator Lenihan but I have pointed out that they are not even accurate. I am sorry to have to repeat this because it must be tedious.

Mr. Lenihan

I appreciate that.

Mr. Tully

I will not blame the Senator for that because it is so difficult if he does not know the area. I want it to be accepted, and the House has already by vote accepted it, that the Dublin area is 13 three-seat constituencies and one four-seat constituency. This was the principle on which we started out and that having been accepted I think it is idle to suggest that we should now go back and redebate the Dublin area and in some way try to relate it to what is happening elsewhere. I do not think it would be in order to do that.

The suggestions which have been made here in regard to this area, particularly the suggestion that a portion of Cavan be added on to Monaghan, are not acceptable in any circumstances, either by Cavan people or Monaghan people. The five-seater which is proposed in the Bill is far more attractive than the idea of having a big sweep of County Meath added on to Monaghan. I do not want to delay on this point. It is too ridiculous for words. I was born and reared in the area and I know it very well. I think it is ridiculous to suggest that from Emyvale up to Navan should be one constituency. We talk about the width from one side of Cavan to the other side of Monaghan. It is not as far as has been suggested. The fact that there are areas left out and jumped across—whole electoral areas—makes it look a bit wide.

I do not want to labour that point. To say that the Cavan people would agree that towns such as Shercock and Kingscourt as well as other smaller areas should be taken and given to Monaghan, and then to go right up round by Kells and Athboy, is not reasonable. I do not want to cut short the debate, but I do not want to take up too much time with the debate. I believe the Senators should have the opportunity of making their points, but I am not prepared to go back and discuss the first set of amendments again because they have been decided and as far as the second set of amendments are concerned I think I have explained fully. Senator Killilea has said I have not. I have gone into the greatest details to explain why this set of amendments would not work.

Mr. Killilea

Why has the Minister changed the principle of three-seaters outside of Dublin.

Mr. Tully

There are two things— the Constitution and the Supreme Court decision. We have to tie the two of them in. We could have seven-seaters, or nine-seaters but without breaching county boundaries very much more we could not do better than we are doing. It is acceptable to everybody who wants to see it.

Mr. Killilea

On the basis of three-seaters in rural areas the Minister could not do better. The Minister said that the best application of democracy is through the principle of three-seaters.

Mr. Tully

I said I was satisfied that in Dublin, and I gave my reasons for it, I believed it would——

Mr. Killilea

The natural logic of that conclusion is that if three-seaters are appropriate for Dublin, surely they must be the most appropriate thing for the country.

Mr. Tully

Supposing there was one huge area in the midlands all belonging to one county or one city, it is possible to divide that in certain ways. When we come to a county boundary such as you have in the case of Cavan-Monaghan, I think it is more reasonable not to breach their boundaries— it is more reasonable to put the two together. When we came to Meath we could have taken a wee bit of Dublin and a wee bit of Louth and made a handy little three-seater. I do not think that would have been right. I think the proper thing to do would be to put the whole of a county with a small portion of another county added to it into a four-seater. There are four divisions in my own constituency of Meath——

Mr. Killilea

What about Kildare and Wicklow?

Mr. Tully

As far as Kildare is concerned it has been suggested to take a portion of Kildare and putting it into Wicklow and portion of it into Dublin and a portion of it into Meath and the balance into Kildare. What I have done is not as bad as that. I have taken up too much time of the House——

Acting Chairman

I must ask Senator Killilea not to take the Minister back to that which has already been dealt with.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister is now discussing the meat of the Bill. I cannot apply the logic of the Minister tearing into Kildare and Wicklow on the one hand and then not daring to do it elsewhere.

Mr. Tully

I did not tear into any of them. Kildare could have had a four-seater but it would mean that in order to level off further it would be necessary that some of Kildare be given to some other county. Some of Dublin would have to be given to Meath in order to level it off. My object was to have the least amount of disturbance. Maybe I am wrong but my reckoning was that it was better to take one county like Kildare and to give a portion of it to Dublin, a portion of it to Kildare itself and a portion of it to Meath. Better to do it that way and have the Kildare end of it compact rather than to take a portion of Kildare and put that into Meath and a portion of Dublin into Meath and a portion of Meath into Louth and have the counties broken up into numerous areas. That was the way it was with Leitrim: it was broken into three parts, but I divided it into two only. I have had this debated at length. I had this in the other House and I have had it here. A tremendous amount of work has gone into the Bill and I am prepared to stand over the Bill as it is.

Mr. McGowan

I would suggest to the Minister that obviously he has not answered the question. He is making plain and obvious now that the House is wasting its time, having made that statement—that it is a stone wall situation here, that it is only an exercise here to act out a charade of democracy which is totally false. I would say that the Minister is a prisoner of the two parties that he is now——

Acting Chairman

I would remind the Senator that the House is discussing Cavan-Monaghan, Louth and Meath and I think I have been very lenient with the Senators until now.

Mr. McGowan

I am asking the Minister a question. I feel it is a useful question because it may restrict the debate here.

Acting Chairman

We are discussing Cavan-Monaghan, Meath and Louth.

Mr. McGowan

We are discussing a group of amendments and my question is related to those amendments.

Acting Chairman

If the Senator would relate it to this particular amendment.

Mr. McGowan

I am asking the Minister a question. He criticises the amendments put forward and I am asking him if they were changed in any way would the Minister accept them.

Acting Chairman

I would remind the Senator that we are only talking about this particular amendment.

Mr. McGowan

Could I further ask the Minister is the reason for his refusal, and his reply to me that he could not change in any circumstances, because of his complete commitment and agreement—is that the reason that we cannot have even the smallest amendment accepted or considered in this House?

Mr. Tully

It is a Government decision because of the fact that I consider the Bill before the House to be in order and I have heard the arguments. I can comment on the amendments before the House. No argument has been put which I would be prepared to agree should be accepted. It is as simple as that. I do not believe any argument has been made which would make me change my mind and I am convinced that the Bill as it is——

Mr. McGowan

Even the smallest item?

Mr. Tully

I did change it in the other House.

Mr. Garrett

You did in regard to East Mayo.

Mr. Yeats

A curious situation has now arisen. For some quite considerable time the Minister has been dealing with this amendment on the basis that for reasons he set out, whether we accept them or not is another matter, appear to him to be good. He now says he cannot accept the amendment because we covered certain townlands, parishes and so on particularly in County Meath which to him do not make sense. This is the line he has been taking as to why he cannot accept this amendment. It is because it has certain, in his view, technical faults. Now in answer to the very cogent question put by Senator McGowan, he completely turns tail from this. He was asked whether, in view of his statement on this amendment, if a slightly different amendment remedying what he considers to be the faults of this one were to be brought in on Report Stage next week, he would accept it. He says: "No. A lot of work has gone into this Bill. I am not accepting anything."

With all respect to the Chair, he said a lot of work has gone into this Bill, not just into this amendment, which I think carries a certain implication about discussing other amendments. We have this completely different approach now from the Minister. Until now he has been discussing these amendments so far as on the basis that they had certain faults. Now it is put to him categorically: "All right. Accepting what he says on this amendment, will the Minister therefore consider accepting an amendment which remedies these defects"? From listening to what he has said it probably could be easily done. He says he will not accept this or any other amendments. So all his argument on this amendment has been a kind of a front, an utterly irrelevant series of statements which have no relation whatever to what is really in his mind. He is happy with the Bill. It accomplishes apparently what he wants to accomplish. He is just not going to make any changes. After some hours of discussion on this amendment he now comes completely around and——

Mr. Tully

I went out for my tea. Senator Yeats also had a break for his tea. Having come back in again and having missed some of a very detailed discussion which I had with Senator Lenihan and with Senator Killilea on the amendment, I think it is a bit unfair of somebody who was not here to generalise. I think it is a rather extraordinary thing that somebody of Senator Yeats's experience should come along and say: "Why does the Minister not say he will accept some amendment?"

As far as I am concerned, so far I have had no argument from anybody which would convince me that I should change. If there was an argument which would make me change my mind I might. I have changed my mind on Bills before, but as of now I have heard nothing from the Opposition which would induce me to change my mind. I think that the Bill, as far as we have gone, is all right. It is as simple as that and I think adding bits on to it and suggesting what might happen and all the rest, is a little bit over the edge. We have been discussing certain amendments. They have been very fully discussed. I think those who are here are satisfied that the amendments would not do any good, would not be acceptable anyway even if they would do what they wanted. I could not accept these amendments. I am not satisfied that these amendments could be worked. I am satisfied that the sections of the Bill which it is proposed to amend are better than they would be if they were amended. I believe they are all right as they are. That is exactly what the situation is.

Acting Chairman

I am now putting the question "That the amendment be made."

Question put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 14; Níl, 26.

Tá

• Aylward, Bob.
• Brennan, John J.
• Browne, Patrick (Fad).
• Cowen, Bernard.
• Dolan, Séamus.
• Garrett, Jack.
• Keegan, Seán.
• Killilea, Mark.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• McGlinchey, Bernard.
• McGowan, Patrick.
• Ryan, Eoin.
• Ryan, William.
• Yeats, Michael B.

Níl

• Barrett, Jack.
• Blennerhasset, John.
• Burton, Philip.
• Butler, Pierce.
• Deasy, Austin.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• FitzGerald, Alexis.
• Fitzgerald, Jack.
• Halligan, Brendan.
• Harte, John.
• Iveagh, The Earl of.
• Kennedy, Fintan.
• Kilbride, Thomas.
• Lyons, Michael Dalgan.
• McAuliffe, Timothy.
• McCartin, John Joseph.
• Mannion, John M.
• Moynihan, Michael.
• O'Brien, William.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Toole, Patrick.
• Owens, Evelyn.
• Russell, George Edward.
• Sanfey, James W.
• Walsh, Mary.
• Whyte, Liam.

Tellers: Tá, Senators W. Ryan and Garrett; Níl, Senators Sanfey and Halligan.

Amendment declared lost.

Question put: "That the entry relating to the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan stand part of the Schedule".

The Committee divided: Tá, 26; Níl, 14.

Tá

• Barrett, Jack.
• Blennerhassett, John.
• Burton, Philip.
• Butler, Pierce.
• Deasy, Austin.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• FitzGerald, Alexis.
• Fitzgerald, Jack.
• Halligan, Brendan.
• Harte, John.
• Iveagh, The Earl of.
• Kennedy, Fintan.
• Kilbride, Thomas.
• Lyons, Michael Dalgan.
• McAuliffe, Timothy.
• McCartin, John Joseph.
• Mannion, John M.
• Moynihan, Michael.
• O'Brien, William.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Toole, Patrick.
• Owens, Evelyn.
• Russell, George Edward.
• Sanfey, James W.
• Walsh, Mary.
• Whyte, Liam.

Níl

• Aylward, Bob.
• Brennan, John J.
• Browne, Patrick (Fad).
• Cowen, Bernard.
• Dolan, Séamus.
• Garrett, Jack.
• Keegan, Seán.
• Killilca, Mark.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• McGlinchey, Bernard.
• McGowan, Patrick.
• Ryan, Eoin.
• Ryan, William.
• Yeats, Michael B.

Tellers: Tá, Senators Sanfey and Halligan; Níl: Senators W. Ryan and Garrett.

Question declared carried.

An Cathaoirleach

It has already been agreed that amendments Nos. 3, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16 and 18 will form a group.

Mr. Lenihan

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 4, to delete the entry relating to the constituency of Clare and substitute the following:

Name	Area	Number of Members
Clare	The administrative County of Clare and in the administrative County of Galway the following electoral divisions: Drummin, Coos, in the former Rural District of Portumna.	Four
	Woodford, Loughatorick, Ballinagar and Derrylaur in the former Rural District of Loughrea.

In this amendment it is proposed— again consistent with our earlier proposal—that as far as possible the territorial identity of County Clare be maintained, thereby justifying four seats which the county is entitled to have. Again, this is in strict accord with the principle underlying our other amendments in which we sought to have the territorial identity of Dublin city and county preserved as well. Grouped with this we have amendment No. 9 which relates to the contiguous constituency of East Galway where in our amendment we suggest five seats. This relates to a paragraph in the Minister's Schedule on page 8 in which he suggests four seats.

Amendment No. 10 in our name relates to West Galway where we suggest having three seats. This in turn relates to page 8 of the Schedule, to the Minister's proposal for West Galway of four seats. Amendments Nos. 3, 9 and 10 comprise the main amendments that we suggest, but of course, as the Minister rightly stated earlier on, any such amendments to have any rationality or common sense must be taken in relation to other consequential happenings in neighbouring constituencies. Accordingly we have amendment No. 13 which is a consequential amendment to the East Mayo constituency. Amendment No. 14 is a consequential amendment to the West Mayo constituency. These again relate to amendment No. 16 in the Roscommon-Leitrim constituency and amendment No. 18 relates to the Sligo-Leitrim constituency.

The amendments as we suggest them in the other Western counties— they are important and I will be referring to them at a later stage— are not as fundamental to our view of the overall situation as the suggested amendments in Clare and Galway. I shall be dealing in greater detail with Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and the two Mayo constituencies later on but initially I should like to concentrate on the first three amendments, that is amendments Nos. 3, 9 and 10, that relate to Counties Clare and Galway, taking those two counties as a unit.

Here we have a very interesting situation in that what is suggested is taking up in a constructive manner a positive intervention by the Minister in the Dáil. I refer to Volume 271, No. 9, columns 1373 and 1374. In the course of the passage of this Bill through the Dáil the Minister invited a proposition that a four-seat constituency be established in Clare. I quote the Minister in his answer to a repeated question from Deputy Loughnane. Deputy Loughnane asked the question three times in this column: "Why not a four-seater in Clare? Answer that one?" Then, of course, there are interruptions from other Deputies interfering with Deputy Loughnane's very pertinent question. He repeats it several times further down: "Why is Clare not a four-seater?" Eventually, he gets himself heard again, and he said to the Minister: "What about my crutches?" The Minister said: "We could have had a four-seater in Clare but when Deputy Molloy was drawing up his amendments he did not think this could have been done." Then the Minister makes a snide remark about Deputy Molloy's good terms with Deputy Loughnane.

Mr. Tully

I thought the Senator was going to read on.

Mr. Lenihan

The Minister stated that he might not be on very good terms with Deputy Loughnane. Deputy Loughnane like a good forceful Deputy comes back to his point—he ignores the Minister's remark—and says: "Why not a four-seater in Clare? The population justifies it." Then we have bantering between the Minister and Deputy Loughnane about hawks and doves in Fianna Fáil. It is very good reading indeed. The Ceann Comhairle rightly brings everybody back to the contents of the Bill, to use his own phraseology. Indeed, he proceeded in some way to reflect on Deputy Loughnane that he had asked that question many times. Deputy Loughnane was rightly getting his point home. Deputy Tully, as a courteous Minister, replied in greater detail to him at this stage at column 1374. I quote the Minister for Local Government:

It would have been possible to have a four-seater in Clare but it would have meant changing quite a lot of what had already been prepared. If Deputy Molloy had proposed something like that maybe we would have considered doing it but he did not. Deputy Molloy did not think of Deputy Loughnane when he was drawing up his amendments because he would be quite happy to see Deputy Loughnane outside the House. That is the difference between Deputy Molloy and me. I would like to see Deputy Loughnane in the House.

I should like to take the Minister up on that. So would we here on this side of the House like to see Deputy Loughnane in that House. Indeed, we would like to suggest that if Deputy Molloy, through some oversight, did not have a proposition for a four-seater ready for the Minister in the Dáil, we have done some homework on that particular aspect. That homework which we have done is now reflected in the first of our amendments which is before the House.

An Cathaoirleach

I did not like to interrupt the actual quotation, but in one remark the Senator did appear to reflect on the conduct of the Ceann Comhairle. I would be glad to have his assurance that there was no intention of doing so.

Mr. Lenihan

Not at all. My apologies to the Cathaoirleach. That was not my intention. I want to relate this exchange of views in the Dáil to the fact that we have now taken the Minister at his word. If through some oversight there was not such an amendment in the Dáil, there is now an amendment here that seeks to take the Minister at his word and puts forward a rational proposal in regard to County Clare. I know the Minister, possibly in an excess of words, sometime ago said that he thought that every detail of this Bill was the "greatest" and he was not going to adopt any changes in it. I give the Minister credit for referring to that as an excess of words. He is well enough and long enough in politics to know—and I do not intend to lecture him here—that the whole purpose of having a Committee Stage debate in a Bill is to have views put forward and to have, if possible, amendments adopted, provided they are reasonably put forward.

Indeed, the Minister, on the occasion of the last group of amendments through his own personal knowledge and involvement in the area concerned was able to point out in what respects our amendments fell down on the practicality of having them applied to the county of which he is a Deputy. Here we suggest is an amendment which on every aspect of viewing makes sense. Here is an amendment that proposes to keep the entire county of Clare as a constituency and in addition to that a few townlands ideally contiguous to it which in fact I know from my personal knowledge of this area are in reality part of Clare—the townlands of Woodford, Loughatorick, Ballinagar and Derrylaur in the former rural district of Loughrea. That particular part of County Galway, adjacent to Gort and Loughrea—as anybody in the House is well aware—has always been associated with County Clare. Since the formation of the State that part of County Galway has been in and out of Clare constituencies. Apart from 1969, it was Clare-Galway; on prior occasions North Clare was in with South Galway; part of South Galway at one stage included that part of North Clare. Therefore over the years—this is where the tradition and the precedent comes in—that small part of County Galway in the Gort-Loughrea area has been in and out of both constituencies, Galway and Clare.

Here we have a very rational amendment. It gives the whole county of Clare its four seats. It is slightly short of justifying four, so these few townslands on the border of Clare, that are as much related to Clare as to Galway, are added to it to make four seats. It is a very clean, rational suggestion. If there is any sincerity and any meaning in having a Committee Stage debate in a House of Parliament, it is one that should be adopted. If not adopted, it requires to be answered as to why it is not being adopted. Taking the constituency of West Galway, there has been total violence done to the territorial and administrative integrity of the county of Clare. Taking West Galway one can see the extent of what has been added in from County Clare to mutilate completely that county in the interests of giving West Galway the completely artificial four-seat constituency. I am sorry to see that the Member of the Seanad who had possibly hoped to be a beneficiary from this arrangement, has not seen fit to be present here to discuss this particular form of mutilation involving County Clare's incorporation in West Galway to make four seats in West Galway, and hopefully a fourth seat for the Labour Party. I say "hopefully", as I do not see the particular Senator who has a vested interest in this particular matter on the Labour Party benches at the moment.

Mr. Tully

There are two of them: one of them belongs to the Senator's part of the House.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Both of them have the utmost confidence.

Mr. Lenihan

In West Galway's four-seat constituency we have the most massive piece of mutilation that is involved in the Schedule. A third to a half of the list of electoral divisions referred to in the West Galway Schedule are made up of a huge part of north-west Clare. The electoral divisions of Abbey, Carran, Castletown, Derreen, Drumcreehy, Gleninagh, Lisdoonvarna, Mount Elvar, Noughaval, Oughtmama, Rathborney and the former rural district of Ballyvaghan are gone into Galway. Ballyvaghan, in total, is gone into Galway and all the electoral divisions in it.

Similarly, in the rural district of Corofin we have Ballyeighter, Boston, Corofin, Glenroe, Killinaboy, Kiltoraght, Muckanagh, Rath, Ruan—the whole rural district of Corofin on top of the rural district of Ballyvaughan. Into the town of Ennis itself, which is well down in the county of Clare, more than halfway, parts of the former rural district of Ennis town, the capital town of the county, are now removed into this West Galway abortion of a constituency. Dysart and Templemaley are in the former rural district of Ennis, added into a constituency that is already stretching to beyond Clifden.

Finally, the whole of West Clare: the rural districts of Ennistymon, Ballagh, Ballyea, Ballysteen, Cloghaun, Clooney, Ennistimon, Kilfenora, Killaspuglonane, Killilagh, Kilshanny, Liscannor, Lurraga, Magherareagh, and Smithstown. Right down into the heart of County Clare, the town of Ennis and the whole of more than half the western coast of Clare and practically all the north-west of Clare, is added into the West Galway constituency to make a four-seat constituency.

I have already shown that in our amendment we can keep the identity of County Clare together. I am seeking to keep an attitude here that what we are discussing are the amendments. This is not Fianna Fáil talking in its interest and we shall not complain or moan about the Government parties looking after their interests. We are concerned about rational amendments that would be adopted by any judicial or quasi-judicial commission or tribunal, who would look at the matter fairly and openly and decide that we must keep a population balance under the terms of the Constitution, having regard to the Budd decision on foot of his interpretation of the relevant Article of the Constitution. We must keep that balance. It is part of the Budd decision and must be maintained within the overall balance of having regard to county boundaries. In other words, one does not breach county boundaries unless one has to. That is the effect of the Budd decision. There must be a population of 20,000 per Deputy, with a reasonable tolerance each way. Otherwise, county boundaries should be maintained and retained. The objective should be to maintain county boundaries, to preserve traditional loyalties and associations and geographical relationships as much as possible. Where that is impossible, the county boundary must be breached.

The Minister's monstrosity in regard to West Galway, in which the whole of north-west Clare is taken away from the county, stands out in stark contradistinction to our proposal to maintain the whole of County Clare, with a few small townlands in South Galway contiguous to it, as a four-seat constituency.

I now proceed to the other side of our argument. In answer to what the Minister has suggested in regard to West Galway we come back to the Minister's beloved three-seat constituency. He has done violence both ways in that he has introduced an artificial four-seat constituency in West Galway, adding to it well over a third of County Clare. He has made an artificial constituency stretching from near Ennis to Clifden in the interests of keeping Clare down to a three-seat constituency and in the interests of having West Galway a four-seat constituency. Our amendment suggests that we do the exact reverse, and this is what the Minister called on us to do in the Dáil, which we are now doing, that is, to preserve County Clare in its integrity as a four-seat constituency, with the few townlands from Galway mentioned, and that we maintain what is, by and large the present West Galway constituency, which has always been the West Galway constituency, with adjustments here and there over many years, as a three-seat constituency. Therefore there is the present three-seat constituency arrangement, which has existed for a long number of years in West Galway, based on the two defined segments of that constituency, which are the city of Galway and its hinterland and Connemara. Why artificially make that a four-seat constituency, by lumping in with that the whole of north-west Clare? This means reverting back to a three-seat constituency in Clare, where the county on its own practically warrants a four-seat situation. There is nothing gained. All there is under the Minister's proposal is a four-seat constituency in a totally artificial new West Galway and a three-seater in a totally mutilated Clare.

Under our proposal we have a four-seat constituency in a complete County Clare and a three-seat constituency in West Galway. That has always been so. If that does not appear to be a logical presentation to the Minister, I do not know what is. In the Bill we find a totally ludicrous position.

All logic would lead one to having a four-seat constituency in Clare and a three-seat constituency in West Galway. Only obscure political advantage would lead a reasonably intelligent man like the Minister to any other conclusion. The natural state of things is reversed: instead of a four-seat constituency in Clare and a three-seat constituency in West Galway we have a four-seat constituency in West Galway and a three-seat constituency in Clare, and violence and mutilation have been done in the process to the two counties concerned. I will be coming back to this tomorrow with the Minister because he has asked us to come out with positive proposals in the course of this debate. He may have been on strong ground in parts of County Meath but he is on very weak ground in trying to explain this one. I believe we are on very strong ground——

Mr. Tully

I will take you on tomorrow.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Might I mention for the convenience of Senators that it is proposed to sit at 10.30 a.m. tomorrow. It has been agreed that we should conclude the Committee stage of this Bill tomorrow and that the Report and remaining Stages should be taken and concluded on Tuesday of next week. It might be of convenience to Senators who want to make arrangements to know that that has been agreed.

Mr. Lenihan

It depends on how well behaved everybody is.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I understand that there is agreement. It is intended to interrupt business tomorrow after lunch in order to take the motion dealing with the regulations for the local elections.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.