(South Tipperary): Amendment No. 10 is to delete the entry relating to Kildare on page 11. That is the entry in the Bill as drafted by the Minister. He has proposed that Kildare be a three-seater constituency to consist mainly of the administrative county of Kildare, except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Meath. In order to meet this amendment it was necessary to put in that the proposals the Minister had in respect of Kildare as a three-seater constituency with some parts of Meath should be deleted. That is all that is implied here.
Amendment No. 11 is an adjustment to the Minister's proposal in regard to the traditional Carlow-Kilkenny constituency whereby Kilkenny has to be treated as a single administrative area if we accept the idea in my amendment that Kildare be treated as a five-seater and Kilkenny treated as a three-seater. That is all that is implied in this amendment.
The suggestion in regard to amendment No. 13 is that Louth should be treated as a four-seater. This amendment suggests that the four-seater constituency should include the administrative area of County Louth and the district electoral division of Grangegeeth, Mellifont, St. Mary's Julianstown and Stamullen in the administrative area of County Meath. In this respect, if Louth is treated as a four-seater by virtue of the distribution of population in the counties of Louth, Meath, Kildare, Cavan and Monaghan Meath may become a three-seater by the transfer to Louth and then Kildare, being a three and a half seater, must be joined to Cavan to form a five-seater, leaving Kilkenny as a three-seater, as I have mentioned.
Louth has a population of 69,519 and to form a four-seater Louth would have a deficit and would need at least 6,593 to 14,593 to become a four-seater. The neighbouring county of Meath has a population of 67,323. Therefore, that means that Meath has a surplus of from 4,239 minimum to 10,239 maximum as a three-seater and the proposed transfers from Meath to Louth to enable Louth to become a four-seater as suggested here would be Grangegeeth, 463, Mellifont, 454, St. Mary's 2,003, Julianstown 2,369, Stamullen 1,355, that is a total of 6,644. The result of this switch of population would be 76,163 for Louth and 60,679 for Meath. Those figures would allow for Louth to be a four-seater and Meath to be a three-seater. Amendment No. 14 is merely a counter to that. The transfer of the population which I have mentioned from Meath to Louth is the only transfer that would be necessary in that area, leaving Louth a four-seater and County Meath to become a three-seater. Monaghan could be a five-seater and Carlow-Kilkenny a five-seater, allowing the return of about 4,000 people back to Wexford.
Amendment No. 16 is to delete the entry relating to Monaghan in page 12. The Minister has devised and suggested that Monaghan should be arranged with a huge transfer of population. He proposes to take this huge transfer of population from both Counties Louth and Meath and put them into Cavan and Monaghan. He has suggested a transfer from Meath to Cavan of 5,656 people and from Meath to Monaghan of 6,426. In the case of Louth, he suggests transferring a population of 7,532 from Louth to Monaghan and a population of 5,041 from Kildare to Meath. The total transfer of population there is 24,655 resulting in a tremendous breach of county boundaries and also, of course, there must be included in that the implied transfer of 4,398 persons from Wexford to Carlow and Kilkenny.
In the arrangement which I have mentioned, making Meath a three-seater and Louth a four-seater, it would be possible to obviate the transfer of these 24,655 persons which the Minister's plan envisages. It would also be possible, under this arrangement, to reintegrate in Wexford County the 4,398 persons who are at present being taken out of that county. The total transfer of population that my proposal entails is 6,644 as against the Minister's figure of 24,655 and if one takes the additional advantage of the return of 4,398 persons from Carlow-Kilkenny back to Wexford and subtracts that from 6,644, there is only a net transfer of 2,246 in that whole eastern constituency complex spreading from Carlow-Kilkenny to Wexford, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Cavan and Monaghan.
The total transfer of population in that eastern area is 29,053 and the net transfer of population under the system which I have outlined is 2,246 as against the figure of 29,053. There is a tremendous difference here. If there is any validity in maintaining county boundaries or local administrative boundaries and if they have any value —the Minister has said that they have —then this is a classical example of the type of area which might be evolved if the Minister would depart from his notion of trying, under a pre-conceived plan, obviously introduced for his own purposes, of gerrymandering the entire country in so far as the Constitution permits him to do so.
Amendment No. 21 is merely the matter that I have mentioned already. The constituency system which I have outlined here would allow a return of 4,398 people to Wexford and would, therefore, allow the whole of Wexford to be conterminous with the local authority council area of Wexford so that from the point of view of population transfer this is a far more sensible arrangement than any other suggested by the Minister. It does mean the creation of a five-seater, and the creation of the five-seater in the northern part of it, Cavan with Monaghan. It does mean making a five-seater of Carlow-Kildare and the abolition of the five-seater in Carlow-Kilkenny. Carlow-Kildare is a five-seater already. Cavan-Monaghan would not seem to be a good five-seater.
All in all, on balance, it would appear to be a far more equitable arrangement than that proposed by the Minister. It would be free of any suggestion that this is being done purely for political purposes and purely for the purpose of getting an electoral advantage, which, I believe, is the purpose behind the Minister's arrangement of practically all these constituencies. The very general plan he has adopted of three-seaters all over the place, irrespective of county boundaries, is an example of the type of thinking that has been operating in the Minister's mind in this whole complex of constituencies along the eastern part of the country.
I put these amendments to the House and recommend them as being far superior to anything which the Minister has suggested. I have given the figures from the point of view of transfers, with which there is no comparison.