——and also the two Deputies O'Higgins. I wonder if Deputy O'Donnell is also thinking of embarking on this trek to Dublin. However, there is no reason why this change should have to be made. County Donegal, on the basis of voters, is fully entitled to its present representation.
As you can see, this unnecessary mutilation of Donegal, if this amendment is not carried, will affect the position in the constituency of Sligo/ Leitrim and the consequential changes in Sligo/Leitrim will affect other Connacht counties right down to Clare. Obviously, the situation in Clare itself will affect the situation in Galway.
It might be more appropriate for me to go to the other extremity of that area in order to demonstrate exactly what must happen now if the Opposition have their way and if this position is to continue and also to demonstrate that a lot of what must happen is not required even by this theory that, irrespective of such considerations as natural features and administrative boundaries, you must have mathematical accuracy of representation in every constituency.
In County Clare, the position is that the population, according to the 1966 Census, is 73,597. The minimum number of population required for four seats in accordance with the present requirements of the Constitution is 76,112. The number of voters, according to the Register of 1967-68, is 48,182 and the minimum number of voters required for four seats is 45,216. So that, on the basis of voters, the position in Clare is that the proportion of voters per Deputy is actually above the national average but the present Constitution requires that Clare cannot retain its present representation because it is short on the grounds of population.
I must say that I can understand the Fine Gael Party's desire to deprive County Clare of its due representation. I can understand that all right. It is not based on any democratic principle. It is based on the fact that this happens to be an area that gives Fianna Fáil a substantial majority. The result of this is that either there must be a substantial transfer of population from County Clare, probably to Galway, and the county's representation reduced to three or else there must be a substantial transfer of population from County Galway and the representation left at four; but this is not necessitated by the requirement that a vote in that area should have the same power with regard to electing a Deputy as a vote has in other parts of the country because the number of voters per Deputy in Clare is, in fact, over the national average.
These two adjustments that would be required at the northern and southern ends of the Province of Connacht are unjustifiable because of the fact that both Donegal and Clare are fully entitled to their present representation on the basis of the number of voters in these constituencies; but, because of these adjustments that must take place at the southern and northern ends of the Province of Connacht, the situation in the actual Province of Connacht itself will be made even worse than it would otherwise be, and as I have said, unjustifiably so.
Take the present constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. The population, according to the 1966 Census, is 67,892 and the number of voters, according to the 1967-68 Register, is 42,863. That means that that constituency as it stands, in accordance with the present requirements of the Constitution, is 8,220 short of the minimum population required for its present four seats and, as I have shown, if this amendment is not made, Sligo-Leitrim must be involved in an adjustment with Donegal. One possibility is—and it may be a probability—that some of the population of this constituency will have to be transferred to Donegal and the number must be at least 5,619. Even if it was possible to transfer just the exact number that would be required, this would leave Sligo-Leitrim requiring at least 13,839. The population of the part of Leitrim that is at present attached to Roscommon is 13,943, but in fact, it would not be possible to deal with the situation by transferring all of those people from the present constituency of Roscommon to the new constituency of Sligo-Leitrim because Roscommon would still require some Leitrim population in order to retain three seats. Therefore, it seems to me that the more likely thing to happen would be that Sligo-Leitrim would be reduced to three seats and, of course, it would be a completely different constituency from what it is at present because portion of it would probably have gone into Donegal.
The resulting position as far as County Leitrim is concerned is fairly obvious: that the county as a county, as far as Dáil representation is concerned, would completely disappear because now part of it would be with Donegal, part with Sligo and part with Roscommon and possibly there might have to be another part of it tacked on to Cavan. When this happened on a much smaller scale in 1961 the Opposition, as far as I could see, were unanimous in describing it as "butchery." as a "savage dismemberment" and as disfranchising the people concerned and certainly as an injustice to the people and to their public representatives and as an infringement of democracy. It is because we in the Government accept that view that we have decided to give the people the opportunity of allowing a reasonable amount of scope in avoiding that kind of injustice.
The next county is the county of Roscommon which, as I said already, has part of County Leitrim tacked on to it. In addition to that, the ridiculous things that have to be done to comply with the present requirements necessitated in 1961 that part of Roscommon had to be added on to Mayo in order to comply with this requirement. The population of the present constituency of Roscommon is 67,605. It has four seats. At present the minimum population required for four seats is 76,112. Obviously, as I said, this part of the present county of Leitrim tacked on to Roscommon must be returned to the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim, even to retain three seats in that constituency.
There are at present 2,566 Roscommon people attached to Mayo and 3,943 Leitrim people attached to Roscommon. It is obvious if the proposed change is not made, the biggest part of this Leitrim population must be returned to the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. Roscommon county itself has a population of 56,228 and, as the minimum required for three seats is 57,084, Roscommon county even if it gets back the population at present attached to Mayo will still require some area of County Leitrim to justify three seats.
With regard to the County Mayo, the total population of the county is 115,547. The number of voters on the 1967-68 register is 71,316. It is obvious if this proposed change is not made, Mayo must lose a seat. In fact, I think it is probably likely it will have to lose a seat whether the change is made or not. Because of the situation arising unnecessarily in Donegal, it may well be that the only way of dealing with the Sligo-Leitrim-Roscommon situation will be that some of the population in Mayo will have to be transferred to one of those constituencies. If we were to try to arrange that the whole of the Province of Connacht would retain its maximum entitlement under the present Constitution of 20 seats as against the present 23 seats, it would be necessary to deal in a very detailed way with the division of population per constituency. In fact, Mayo would also very probably have to be adjusted at the other end of the county with County Galway.
I have mentioned that Galway would also be affected by the situation that unnecessarily arises in Clare. The county of Galway as a whole at present has eight seats. If the proposed change in the Constitution is not made, it is short of the minimum population for this number of seats. The total population of County Galway is 148,340 while the minimum population required for eight seats is 152,224. Obviously, if this change is not made, there will have to be this adjustment between Galway and Clare and probably between Galway and Mayo as well.
All this type of thing was found to be very objectionable by the Opposition Parties in 1961. But now, when it must happen on a much wider scale, apparently it is found not to be objectionable at all. It has been alleged that in putting forward this proposed amendment of the Constitution the Government are interested in retaining for the west of Ireland representation to which it is not entitled on the basis of equality of the effect of a vote in different parts of the country. I think it would be appropriate to examine the position in this western area as a whole—Donegal, Clare and the province of Connacht—and to compare it with the situation in the area which it is being alleged is being victimised by this proposal, that is, the Dublin area.
The total population of the province of Connacht is 401,950. As I said the population of Donegal is 108,549 and the population of Clare is 73,597, so that the total population of this area is 584,096. In accordance with the present requirements of the Constitution the maximum representation that could be accorded for this area, which has 33 seats at present, is 30 seats, that is, a reduction of three. But the number of voters in this area is 365,740 and on the basis of the national average of voters per Deputy instead of this artificial and meaningless requirement of the average of population per Deputy, this area would be entitled to 32 seats and not 30. So that the most that even the most rigid application of this alleged principle would require would be a reduction of one seat in that area rather than three seats.
The Opposition campaign against this amendment of the Constitution means in fact that they are insisting on this area losing three seats instead of the maximum of one that is required even on the basis of the most rigid application of this so-called democratic principle which in fact, as the Opposition Deputies pointed out so forcefully in 1961, is the negation of democracy rather than what it is represented to be. As I pointed out, on this fairer basis, Donegal and Clare need not lose a seat at all and there would be a total reduction of one seat in the Province of Connacht. It would not be necessary at least to breach the provincial boundaries at the northern and southern extremity of the province. It must be quite clear that that is probably just exactly what would happen if the amendment we propose were carried. Obviously by adhering to the guidelines laid down in the Bill, it would not be possible to exercise a maximum deviation below the national average in all rural parts of the country and a maximum deviation above the national average in the urban areas as is being alleged. That could be challenged in the courts and such an attempt would be held to be unconstitutional.
So the most that will result from what is proposed in this Bill is that a vote in the western areas will have the same effect in electing a Deputy as it would have in urban areas. What we propose will do no more than enable this amount of justice to be done to the people in the western areas. As I say, that would be much nearer to this alleged principle of one man, one vote. For some reason or another the Opposition have apparently deliberately decided to try to deprive the west of Ireland of representation to which it is entitled even on the basis of the most rigid interpretation of any democratic principle.
It is alleged that for some reason the Government artificially want to maintain the representation of the western areas. Opposition Deputies have been putting forward the allegation that this is because it is there that Fianna Fáil get their majority, and that an attempt is being made to victimise the Dublin areas because we have a minority there. In fact, that is not the position at all. In the province of Connacht, we have a majority of only one, whereas in the Dublin city and county area, we have a majority of two. It is alleged that this proposal will victimise the people of Dublin city and county, so I think the next most appropriate area for us to examine would be the Dublin area and compare it with the western area which must lose three seats if the Opposition succeed in their attempt to retain the present position.
According to the 1966 census, Dublin city and county have a population of 795,047 people. The number of voters is 446,781. On the basis of the present Constitution this area must get at least 38 seats instead of the present 34 seats. As I have shown, the western area must be reduced from 33 seats to 30. This means that if the proposed change is not made there must be an increase of at least four seats in the Dublin area, but on the basis of the national average of voters as distinct from the total population, which includes children, whether at home, in institutions or hospitals or otherwise, the minimum number of seats is 36, not 38. So, the present constitutional provision requires that there should be two more seats than are justified by even the most rigid interpretation of this alleged principle of one man, one vote in this area, and it requires that there be a reduction of two more in the western area than would be required by the same rigid interpretation of this so-called principle.
Even if it were possible to exercise the maximum deviation of one-sixth of the national average of the population over the whole of the Dublin area there would have to be at least 35 seats allocated to the area. Even if this were possible it would be at least nearer to the number of 36 which would be based on the strict application of the principle of equality of the effect of a vote in all parts of the country.
As I have pointed out, because of the lines laid down to guide the exercise of this deviation of one-sixth above or below the national average, obviously it would not be possible to operate that uniformly throughout the country as a whole. It is extremely unlikely that it would be possible to apply that maximum figure over the whole of the Dublin area. With at least eight or nine different constituencies in the Dublin area as a whole it would not be practicable to arrange them in such a way as to have the maximum number per Deputy in each. Even if it were possible to do that——