Vol. 413 No. 6
8 Mr. J. Mitchell asked the Minister for the Environment if, having regard to the commitment in the revised Programme for Government to again review constituency boundaries, when he expects adequate data to be available to him from the 1991 census to proceed with the review.
13 Mr. Taylor asked the Minister for the Environment when he expects to be in a position to establish the promised commission to review constituency boundaries; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 13 together. I understand that the Central Statistics Office expect to have the 1991 population figures, in the detail required for a constituency commission, available for the entire country in the second half of 1992.
A brief question, please, Deputy Mitchell, as time is up.
Given the commmitment in the revised Programme for Government to have another review, will the Minister confirm that it is without precedent to review Dáil constituencies twice within the lifetime of one Dáil? Will he acknowledge that this uncertainty is creating great difficulties for unfortunate Deputies like myself who are in a most difficult constituency and do not know where to work?
It would be premature at this stage to discuss the outcome of the census to be published in 1992 but the Deputy is quite right when he says that the revised Programme for Government indicates that an independent boundary commission will be established once the data becomes available. I do not think it would be appropriate to go any further until that information becomes available.
We must now proceed to other questions. Question No. 9.
May I ask a brief question?
It will have to be very brief because we are behind time.
The Constitution requires a review every 12 years but here we are having a second review within two years. This makes no sense and it makes democratic representation very difficult. Will the Minister accept that there is no need to have another review of constituency boundaries so soon after the last one?
As I said, it would be premature at this time to speculate until we see the results of the census.
Or the result of the leadership election.
