When we were discussing this matter last week, as a result of some interruptions made by the Minister for Local Government the tone of the debate accelerated and, indeed, there were some sharp exchanges across the House. I am aware that the speed of the exchanges was such as to prevent any stenographer from getting everything that was said. I am aware also that Ministers and Deputies have the privilege to go into the office of the Editor of Debates and edit their own contributions, but I am not aware that at any time can one Deputy or, indeed, a Minister, alter the contributions of other Deputies. On looking at the Official Report of last Wednesday, Volume 269, No. 5, 28th November, it appeared to me in particular that the references or the exchanges I had with Deputy Coogan, where I had insisted on a withdrawal of an inference he had made—the Deputy had the courtesy to rephrase his earlier remarks to my satisfaction—have not, I regret, appeared in the Official Report.
You know, Sir, I think probably what nettled the Minister was that I questioned his competence and ability and I will do that again today. I treat everybody in this House with courtesy and respect and I expect to be treated back in the same way. But if any Minister, any arrogant Minister, wishes to treat me in a different way I will give him more than he can give out, as indeed the Minister withdrew from the exchange with a very insulting and personally insulting remark when he realised he was not getting the better of the argument. I was making my contribution practically without interruption when the Minister pointed out that in his view he had to spend six months cleaning up the mess left by his predecessor and that is why we had the delay in seeing this particular Bill. But the Minister knows as well as I know, as well as every Deputy in this House knows, that he produced a Bill which was unacceptable, in the first instance to some of his own colleagues and certainly to his own Executive and then unacceptable, indeed, to the Parliamentary Secretary, who is sitting across, if my reports are correct, in certain facets, and the Bill had to be drafted and redrafted.
If I thought this Bill was the complete work of the Minister for Local Government I would urge our party to support it. The Minister has made so many decisions that have proved incorrect, he has been so anxious to make decisions without being properly briefed or without fully considering the implications, that if this Bill were his work it must be wrong for the present Government. However, it is not his Bill. I am aware that the Taoiseach consulted with some of his "whizz kids" and, as a result, we have a Fine Gael Bill introduced by a Labour Minister.
I have gone through the Bill, constituency by constituency. With the sole exception of the amazing exercise of putting Ennis with Galway in the hope of electing Senator Higgins, there is not one prospect I can see of any extra Labour seats being acquired in the next general election, regardless of whatever way public opinion may swing at that time.
I admit the Minister has carefully put an extra seat in his own constituency to protect himself and also that he has put one in Waterford to protect the party chairman, Deputy Tom Kyne. If there are seats to be won by the Government in the next general election as a result of this Bill, working on the statistical facts available from the last and previous general elections, they will be won by Fine Gael not by Labour. The one exception is the extraordinary exercise of putting Ennis in with Galway, in the interest apparently of the Senator in that area.
Referring to the debate last week, I expressed the view that I had no objection whatever to the introduction of three-seat constituencies in Dublin. Indeed, I have expressed the view since the first referendum was defeated that we should maximise the three-seat constituency situation throughout the country. I believe in the system of single-seat constituencies. The next nearest thing to letting proportional representation work as it should, namely enabling a government to be elected, to be formed and to govern, is a three-seat constituency situation. Admittedly there may be some exceptions to that but we should maximise the three-seat constituency situation. In that event, depending on public opinion at the time, one side will get two seats and the other side will get one seat if the general trend throughout the country is the same. That means that a government will be elected with a reasonably comfortable majority and will be able to put their programme into effect without compromising, perhaps, with Independent support.
I do not know how Fianna Fáil got an overall majority in 1933 because at that time there were two nine-seaters. As I pointed out last week, in the townships in Dublin South there were seven seats, of which Fianna Fáil got five. I should like to quote the following because the Minister's interruption is very interesting. At the time Deputy Cluskey was sitting opposite me. At column 689 of the Official Report dated 28th November, 1973 I said:
As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare will remember, there was a seven-seat constituency in his area and on one occasion Fianna Fáil elected five out of the seven Deputies and, indeed, it was on my late father's surplus that Jim Larkin was elected.
Mr. Tully: People became very intelligent since then.
I do not know if it was the Minister's intention to insult my late father or to insult Jim Larkin. Both these men are respected by the people in Dublin and I can assure the Minister if it was his intention to insult either of them it will not do him any good in the Dublin area. In the seven or nine-seat constituency situation it was an amazing achievement for any one party to get an overall majority. The smaller constituencies we have now are far more workable.
I should like to refer briefly to the exchange between Deputy Coogan and myself. When I named the Dublin-based Ministers in the present Government, as the Deputy always seems to object to anybody with what he calls "Jackeen" associations some names were left out such as the Minister for Education, Deputy Burke, and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Clinton. As Dublin is expanding at the moment, I suppose we can call the Minister for Local Government, Deputy Tully, a "Jackeen", if not now then in the very near future.
When Deputy Blaney was Minister for Local Government I asked him to do only one small thing. Some cumainn in my constituency bought a house; I told the Minister to do what he liked but I asked him to leave the house in the constituency. Of course he did not do that. Any Ministers with whom I have been associated in constituency revisions have said that what might suit me might not necessarily suit Deputy Briscoe, or Deputy Dowling as the case might be. Except in broad outline, the details of all Bills in connection with constituency revisions are largely the work of statisticians, mathematicians and officials in the Department of Local Government. With the exception of a few very obvious points, I find little objection to the Bill. However, there are some very obvious matters that stick out like a sore thumb and they make the Bill objectionable.
I should like to quote the Minister when he was in opposition. At column 1817 of the Official Report dated 4th December, 1968, he said:
I do not care what any Member of the House says, I have a personal view on this. I believe that county boundaries are important just as I believe that the national boundary is important and I would not agree that somebody who lives in County Meath would be happy being attached to another county... I do not agree, therefore, that county boundaries should be sundered. The Minister has a sin to answer for.
At column 1986 of the Official Report dated 15th November, 1973, the Minister said:
It is particularly desirable that the historic county boundaries should be preserved as far as possible and that natural communities should not be divided between different constituencies. In practice, these considerations may be incompatible with one another in certain cases and in such cases a choice must be made.
This brings me back to the Ennis-Galway position, the only effort I can see to bring in an extra Labour seat. What the Minister seems to forget is that in a three-seat situation in Dublin he is running a grave risk. Prior to the revision introduced by the then Minister, Mr. Boland, it was mostly a five-seat situation in the Dublin area. Not on the first occasion but in due course Fianna Fáil succeeded in electing three out of five and in one election when we dropped one of the three seats it was by a matter of four votes. I refer to the time Deputy Eugene Timmons was the victim of a long count.
Most of us were in Monaghan in the last four weeks. Most of us were probably in Mid-Cork and the extent of constituencies such as this was absolutely amazing to me, as a Dublin Deputy. I moved from one comhairle area to another. I had to drive 57 miles and I was not going from the extreme north to the extreme south. I am trying to figure out how a Deputy who is elected for a constituency—he is not elected only for a parish or a part of a constituency but he represents all the people in the constituency—can give service to these vast areas. Certainly the Minister has given no recognition to that problem. There has not been a by-election in County Meath that I can recollect. But how the Minister can put the county of Cavan and the county of Monaghan in together and make the constituency so much greater than the constituency we recently canvassed is something which I will never understand.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,