I want to say, first of all, that I had brought home to me just how much time was devoted by the Fianna Fáil Party to this Bill, to the referendum and to all that goes with trying to install themselves in office for 30 years when I went down to the Library to refresh my mind on what had been said on the Budget last spring. I found there, as I went through the debate, that there were probably eight, nine or ten occasions when this Dáil debated either the Referendum Bill or something else to do with changing the electoral system. There were more entries regarding this than there were on any other business. It is sad that we are here at this time of the year, with so many financial and economic difficulties facing us, still discussing how Fianna Fáil are endeavouring to keep themselves in power for the longest possible time and against the wishes of the majority of the people.
We are now dealing with a Bill, which presumably will become an Act, because of the majority which Fianna Fáil now enjoy in Dáil Éireann. It will probably become an Act unchanged. This Bill is brought in here in another effort to get more value for the votes cast for the Fianna Fáil Party than those which shall be cast for anybody else. We have heard Deputy Reynolds, a responsible Member of this House, stand up here and tell how the Fianna Fáil councillors from Leitrim came up here to discuss with the man sitting opposite, the Minister for Local Government, how he should break up the various areas of Leitrim in relation to the forthcoming election, what counties they should be scattered to and where they would get the most votes. Mark you, this drawing up of the constituencies was not done as laid down by the High Court judgment, to which I shall refer later, and as was laid down in the Constitution where the phrase "so far as is practicable" was mentioned. This was done at the grassroots to find out where the majority could be got in one area for Fianna Fáil which would give the least votes to the Opposition. I think the Minister will not deny this when he is replying—he can do so now if he wishes—that he conferred with every Deputy in his Party and with every possible county registrar and every sworn Fianna Fáil supporter to see that he got the best for his Party. In fact, the people of Ireland have given him his office as a Minister of this State for the purpose of doing what is just and proper and, in relation to constitutional law, what is laid down by the Constitution. Such is the prostitution of the Fianna Fáil Party that I am quite certain that he does not think there is anything wrong with that. Such are the depths to which they have descended. That is for them. For my part, I shall certainly try to preserve standards and, perhaps, to look with some sort of charitable eyes on the standards of those who have debased themselves in such a manner.
I want to draw attention to the fact that, in fixing these constituencies, the Minister proposes that 101,000 people all over Ireland shall be moved from their natural voting place, that that number of people throughout the country shall be displaced. A responsible Senator, who is also a well-known economist and statistician, and a responsible Deputy of this House, Deputy P.J. Hogan (South Tipperary), have each produced an alternative means of doing this and, in each case, the number of persons displaced was well under 50,000 and, indeed, nearer to 40,000. In so doing, these two gentlemen have left themselves open to very heavy criticism because they could be told, in various areas throughout the country: “You are moving us this way while Fianna Fáil were going to move us there.” These two gentlemen have done a great service to the Irish people by pointing out how this could be done while displacing less than half the number of persons who will be displaced by the Government proposal which is for the sole purpose of giving more value to a vote for Fianna Fáil.
Again, there is the question of the quotation given by the Minister in his opening remarks. I propose to quote from page three of the Minister's opening statement which gives an extract from the Supreme Court judgment setting out their attitude to the provisions of subsection 3º of section 2 of Article 16 of the Constitution:
The sub-clause recognises that exact parity in the ratio between members and the population of each constituency is unlikely to be obtained and is not required.
That does not mean we want an exact parallel.
The decision as to what is practicable is within the jurisdiction of the Oireachtas. It may reasonably take into consideration a variety of factors, such as the desirability so far as possible to adhere to well-known boundaries such as those of counties, townlands and electoral divisions. The existence of divisions created by such physical features as rivers, lakes and mountains may also have to be reckoned with. The problem of what is practicable is primarily one for the Oireachtas, whose members have a knowledge of the problems and difficulties to be solved which this Court cannot have. Its decision should not be reviewed by this Court unless there is a manifest infringement of the Article.
I want to point out how far the court went to try to make it easy for this House not to butcher Leitrim or Louth or anywhere else for the base purpose of politicians. The quotation continues:
This Court cannot, as is suggested, lay down a figure above or below which a variation from what is called the national average is not permitted. This, of course, is not to say that a Court cannot be informed of the difficulties and may not pronounce on whether there has been such a serious divergence from uniformity as to violate the requirements of the Constitution.
I come now to the important part of the quotation:
To justify the Court, in holding that the sub-section has been infringed it must, however, be shown that the failure to maintain the ratio between the number of members for each constituency and the population of each constituency involves such a divergence as to make it clear that the Oireachtas has not carried out the intention of the sub-clause.
In the opinion of the Court the divergencies shown in the Bill are within reasonable limits.
That means that the Bill, as produced by Fianna Fáil in 1961, was regarded by the court as lawful. They had at that stage, decided they would bind themselves. The important point is that this was their decision, not the decision of the court, to bind themselves to a divergence of five per cent either way or a maximum divergence of ten per cent. They decided that it was not the job of the court to say that a divergence of 3,000 in, say, 15 per cent, or anything else, should be allowed: it was the court's duty only to point out whether or not what was done was lawful. That does not mean that, forever and a day, that particular divergence could not be exceeded.
Fianna Fáil chose, from that, to bind themselves to this divergence for the sole purpose of butchering and of seeing to it that they could get at the constituencies. In fact, this Bill relates directly to the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill which was defeated by a colossal majority not so very long ago. First of all, they bound themselves and then they sought to move legally from a divergence of five per cent either way or a maximum of ten per cent to one of 16? per cent or 33? per cent overall. If they had got that with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill then it would have been a case of God help the people of this country. There would not have been a chance for any vocational group to make its protest. We would have been visited by the Fianna Fáil steamroller in order to make two votes equal three. Happily, such did not occur. Fianna Fáil have been moving, by way of progression from one stepping-stone to the other, in the first instance to gerrymander the constituencies on a small scale and then legally to try to gerrymander them on a fantastic scale. They have been frustrated, in the first place, and now they are restricted by what they bound themselves to.
Take no account of townlands, county boundaries, rivers, lakes, people, urban populations and rural populations; forget whether it is Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael; forget Fianna Fáil's base desires and their efforts to install themselves indefinitely in power: they could have produced reasonable constituencies and, without breaking the court ruling of a divergence of five per cent either way, they could—so long as they stayed along the boundaries created by urban and rural populations and along the mountains, lakes, rivers, and so on, that put our people into compact and proper units—devised an eminently more suitable proposal than that with which they have now come to this House. However, they were not interested in doing so.
The units in which Fianna Fáil were interested were the units that would bring more Fianna Fáil representatives into this House—not necessarily the best people to be in this House, not necessarily the people who would have got the most votes if there were natural boundaries but people sworn to vote "Tá" or "Níl" according as Fianna Fáil dictated they should do.
I mentioned that a responsible Deputy of this House, Deputy P.J. Hogan (South Tipperary)—an eminent medical man himself—went to the trouble of doing a study in this matter. Likewise, an eminent economist and statistician who is a member of Seanad Éireann carried out such a study. In their respective results, these two gentlemen were able to produce schemes of constituencies under which only slightly over 40,000 people throughout the country would be moved from where they vote at present. An eminent Senator and an eminent Deputy did the same study and, with different movements, got somewhat the same results. However, in order to butcher and to see that they got the most value everywhere, Fianna Fáil, even within the limits they imposed upon themselves, had to move 101,000 people throughout this State. Why did Fianna Fáil behave in this manner in this Bill? How can the Minister justify it? Why could the Minister not accept, on Committee Stage, the suggestions of the eminent Senator and the eminent Deputy of this House?
I now want to point to something that has made me very unpopular with the Taoiseach over the past few months. I say that for the actions of Deputy Boland, the Minister for Local Government, the Taoiseach is responsible. This lark that we have all heard and the title I was guilty of giving him myself "Honest John" is the greatest cod that ever was. Under the system of Government and Parliament in Britain, here and on the Continent the guideline is that a Prime Minister, Taoiseach, or whatever he is called in whatever the country, is responsible for every action of his every Minister. A Minister of State exists entirely and absolutely on the "hire-em and fire-em" basis and if the Minister here is guilty of producing a Bill which is improper, guilty of endeavouring to get more value for his own Party than the spirit of the Constitution under which we all serve intended, if he is guilty of acting improperly in relation to that Constitution and trying to get the best for his own crowd, then the man who is primarily responsible and who must answer for that is the Taoiseach and one knows his record in that regard when one recalls the actions of the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Local Government which to say the least of it have been very improper indeed.
I want to suggest in relation to some localised changes which are projected in this Bill and of which I have a certain knowledge that Fianna Fáil have acted entirely and absolutely for their own purposes. I want to refer first to County Meath. Over a period County Meath had developed into the position where you had one Fine Gael, one Fianna Fáil and one Labour Deputy elected. The two Deputies elected on the Opposition side are excellent Deputies, men who are known in every parish in their constituencies, men who do their work well and who in my view will be elected again. The other man, the Minister for Defence, is a man so long in political life in County Meath that he will be elected again. Therefore, there was a status quo there. However, in Monaghan the position is very different. The Minister for External Affairs who is sitting opposite me knows that when the stage was reached where there were going to be two Fine Gael Deputies in Louth and one Fianna Fáil Deputy, portion of the Fine Gael area in Louth was put into Monaghan, the exercise being on the basis that there were enough Fianna Fáil votes in Monaghan to take the extra Fine Gael votes going in.
Then in the last election the horror broke. The Minister for Transport and Power—I forget which Ministry he had at the time—was elected with a majority of 120 votes over the second Fine Gael candidate, Mr. William Fox. That meant, of course, that in Monaghan there was the danger but in Meath there was not. In Meath there was the impact of Mr. Fox who is now on the Monaghan County Council, a young, energetic and able man who is coming up, and this was something that had to be feared. They decided the best thing to do was to get a lump of another constituency and put it into Meath and to take a lump from Meath and put it into Monaghan, on the basis that this would not bear the stamp of Monaghan, would not have the impact of Mr. Fox and Deputy Dillon, and Fianna Fáil would still get home.
This is the sort of thing that was not necessary. Meath did not need any move but if it did need any move it did not need two moves. It was not necessary to add votes to it and at the same time take votes from it. Why were votes added to it? For a very simple reason. The constituency of Kildare was a four-seat constituency and added to it were parts of Westmeath. Fianna Fáil just could not get any more in Kildare than they had and, therefore, the best thing to do was to make Kildare a three-seat constituency and leave a small portion of Meath therein. That would mean that the gamble would be there and that Fianna Fáil who had a quota and three-quarters in the old constituency might, perhaps, make two out of three in the new constituency instead of two out of four in the old one. This is the sort of thing that we want to talk about. These are the things which prove that Fianna Fáil are not prepared to do anything except for their own base purposes.
Let us consider the situation in relation to Cavan. It was suggested that Cavan and Monaghan could have become a five-seat constituency. In that situation there would be no doubt that the Government would have a minority and, therefore, the situation was preserved. Louth was left butchered as it was but it should be remembered that the people of Louth greatly resented the fact that Ardee was removed from them on a previous occasion and is still being left there. The situation in Louth is that if it has not seen the surgeon's knife recently, the surgeon's knife was there some eight years ago. We are still butchered. It should be remembered, too, that on the day of the referendum the Fianna Fáil posters were all over the Duleek Gate Ward, that is everything south of the River Boyne, saying: "Vote Yes or your town will be split in two." You had the situation whereby the Minister for External Affairs and his colleague, the Minister for Lands, circulated handbills in my constituency and in their own in which we were told that the village of Collon, three miles from where I live, and I am only five miles from the sea, would go into Monaghan and we were told that more of Ardee and Barronstown would go into Monaghan. Is that the sort of behaviour in which two Ministers of State should indulge? They should be ashamed of themselves.
Let us consider what the people of Louth were told on that occasion if they were foolish enough to go against Fianna Fáil. It was "If you do not want our proposals Louth will be decimated as Leitrim was." Imagine a town of 17,000 people with, say, 6,000 on one side of the river and 11,000 on the other, being told that if they did not vote "Yes" on that particular day the 6,000 would go into Meath. In fact, the rumour immediately afterwards from Fianna Fáil was that the opposite was happening. Everything in the end was done for Fianna Fáil's own purposes. I do not want to delay the House but I am convinced that there was no need for Fianna Fáil to confine themselves according to the ruling given in the Supreme Court in 1961 which was again quoted by the Minister today. In fact, I quoted it myself in every speech I made in Louth during the referendum campaign. There was no need at all for the Government to restrict themselves to this small amount in relation to the number of electors per Deputy. In so doing they have enabled themselves to use and abuse the Constitution and ensure for themselves a larger number of Deputies here. Have they succeeded? I suggest that they have not. The referendum campaign in which the Government were defeated by 267,000 votes, if you take a broad average of the two proposals, meant that the Government will stay defeated. Nothing they can do will have any effect on their votes in the next election. They are out but I also think that, perhaps, they have succeeded in keeping two, three or, perhaps, four good Fine Gael and Labour men out of the House and as such this is important and it should be nailed to their door.
The fact that they bolstered their constituencies after 1961 has tied them. They did their best in Dublin city where they knew they would be decimated. They produce these four-seat constituencies instead of the normal three and five-seat constituencies. What is the result? The result is that with a lesser number of votes they will get two against two for the Opposition Parties. If they get a lesser number of votes in a three-seat constituency they will get one against two for the Opposition Parties. In a five-seat constituency, with a lesser number of votes, they will get two against three for the Opposition Parties.
The Government are using every artifice to save their seats. Perhaps, in Dublin city, they may save two or three. We know they had in broad perspective a normal study of the situation and the Bill produced here shows the effort to gerrymander and shows, too, the noose they have tied around their own necks. I maintain there is no question at all but that they are on the way out, and on their way out very, very quickly. I suggest also that the figure I quoted of 276,000 votes against the Government is something that can be discussed in passing. I want to get this across very, very clearly now: there is no need whatever for a majority against the Government of 276,000 votes to put them over here. All that is needed is a swing of approximately 60,000 to 70,000 votes. If the Government Party retrieve these votes out of a defeat of 276,000 votes, then they are not Fianna Fáil men; they are miracle men on their way out.
