As I said before the debate was adjourned, we in Fine Gael are in favour of having a rearrangement of the electoral areas for the Dublin Corporation in Dublin if the purpose of the rearrangement is to bring about a situation in which there is equality in the number of electors in the various electoral areas. We do, however, have a certain amount of fear regarding the blank powers which the Minister is seeking. We do not think it is any defence to say that the Minister already has immense, uncurtailed powers in relation to fixing electoral areas in other parts of the country, particularly in the boroughs of Cork, Limerick and Waterford. We think the kind of legislation which the bureaucrat is anxious to get from this House is something that this House should be reluctant to give, that is, legislation which gives Ministers complete power to arrange things to their own satisfaction, because a situation invariably arises then that this House is, in fact, not making the law; all this House is doing is permitting other people to make the law.
We do not think it is any adequate safeguard to provide, as the Minister is providing, that any Orders which he makes under this Bill must be laid on the Table of the House so that they may be rescinded, if this House so decides, within seven Dáil days of the Orders being put on the Table.
I am not making any specific allegation as to what the present Minister or the present Government may do when I say that it is wrong to give a power of that kind to a Minister because the Minister of the day could well gerrymander the electoral areas to his own Party advantage and there would be no prospect of upsetting the gerrymandering arrangement as long as the Minister had a majority in the House and, clearly, he would not be Minister unless he had a majority in the House. Therefore, there is absolutely no protection whatever against gerrymandering in the powers the Minister already has in relation to some boroughs and is now seeking in relation to Dublin. We think that is wrong.
The Constitution has a safeguard in relation to this because in the Constitution it is specifically set out that there must be an equality in the ratio between population and Deputies and that this must as far as practicable— and that is the phrase used in the Constitution—apply. Some years ago we were told in this House that it was not practicable to have an equality in the ratio between Deputies and electors and as a result, it required only two-thirds the number of votes in the west of Ireland to elect a Deputy as it took along the eastern seaboard. The people who decided that here in the first instance were the Dáil and because the Government of the day had a majority, they were able to force through the Electoral Act of 1959 which had a gross inequality of electors or of population to Deputies. It required to be challenged in the courts and it was challenged in the courts, and the courts held that this Oireachtas had not arranged the constituencies in such a way as to secure as far as practicable an equality between the population and the Deputies.
It is desirable that that protection should be there because not only must we have a scheme which respects the principle of one man, one vote but we must also have a system which ensures that it is one man, one vote and to every man an equal vote and that when the people of Dublin are going to elect their councillors to represent them on Dublin Corporation, every person ought to go in the knowledge that his vote has exactly the same influence, has the same power and the same effect as the vote of anybody else. That cannot be done unless we respect the equality which ought to exist between the number of electors in the various electoral areas.
On figures which I got in reply to Dáil Question No. 24 today, we discover that the number of electors for the Dublin Corporation on the current 1966-67 register is 321, 363. This, divided between the nine electoral areas which we have at the present time, would give an average of 35,707 per area. We find that under the present system which the Minister is quite rightly seeking to amend because we have inequality, we have three constituencies where the number of electors far exceeds that figure and we have six constituencies in which the number of electors is under that figure. One of them, I suppose, can be regarded as being fair and as near as practicable to what should be the average, that is, the No. 3 area, which has 35,117, only 500 under the average of 35,707. The No. 1 area, to which the Minister makes reference in his explanatory memorandum, has 21,200 over the average of 35,707 which ought to apply. In the No. 5 area, which covers Ballyfermot and Drimnagh, there are 4,300 over the average and in the No. 7 area, which covers Crumlin, Kimmage, Rathfarnham and churchtown, there are 9,500 over the average.
The effect of that is that these people are to some extent disfranchised. They have less political power. They have less say in determining the complexion of Dublin Corporation than have people in any electoral area where the number of electors is less than what ought to be the average.
Again taking the constituencies which have fewer than what ought to be the average, you have at the top, again the area to which the Minister makes reference in his explanatory memorandum, the No. 9 area, which is primarily the South City area and also taking in part of the centre of the city just north of the Liffey. We find that they have 20,306 under the average of 35,000 and other areas, the No. 2 area, 5,200 under the average; No. 4 area, 3,300; No. 6 area, 2,900; No. 8 area, 3,700 under the average of what ought to apply.
This has clearly created a situation in which there is no equality of electoral power in Dublin and, therefore, we welcome a change of heart on the part of the Minister but we do say that this is the wrong time to bring in this reform. Again and again, the Minister—not this Minister but his predecessors, his colleagues in the present Government—were asked by ourselves on the Fine Gael side of the House to take the steps necessary to bring about an equality of electoral strength. We regret that this was not done long ago. However, it is now about to be done but we have not yet got from the Minister, and we think it is the least we should have got in his opening statement, any indication as to when he proposes to make the amending orders. We are now, according to the information we got from the Minister last week, scarcely four months away from the next local elections which will be held in June and even with the best of goodwill and speed in this House and in the Seanad, this Bill will not become an Act for some time and after that the Minister will have to make the necessary orders. It is treating the electorate with very scant consideration and treating would-be councillors with no consideration to be bringing in a measure of this kind right on the eve of an election. The time to bring in amending legislation of this kind was after the 1960 local elections and certainly long before the period at which the outgoing council ought to have terminated, and that was away back in 1960.