This Bill, in a way, is dynamite because though brief it gives such wide power to the Minister. For that reason we must get several things clarified for us. It is designed to amend a situation arising from the 1963 Act in relation to the title of alderman in Dublin. The Minister said he does not approve of the title. That is a matter of opinion. Many people are fond of Dublin history and like the old traditions to be respected and retained. Even if they are empty symbols they are part of history.
The Minister seeks unqualified approval from the House of this very large amendment which he proposes and which will give him remarkable powers. Let us examine exactly the powers the Minister will have if the Bill is passed. We must admit straight away that it is necessary to alter the present arrangement in Dublin because of the movement of population and the consequent inequalities in relation to population in so far as one area compares with another. This Bill will give the Minister power to redraw area boundaries in connection with Dublin city for Dublin Corporation election purposes next June.
We are in favour of having alterations made fairly. The Minister said he intends to have them done fairly, first considering the population — in other words, having an average number of people represented in the corporation by each councillor or alderman as the case may be. It seems to me that the Minister, if he gets this Bill, will have power to alter the number of areas. There are nine areas in the city at present, and this Bill will give him power to increase the number. During the debate the Minister said he would not approve of 15 areas for Dublin Corporation purposes and this showed the way the Minister is thinking. He is thinking, possibly, of maintaining nine areas but he has not told us that and we are debating the Bill without a statement before us to that effect. He has not drawn boundaries or given us even a provisional boundary scheme for the areas he has in mind. He is asking us to give him blindly power to draw boundaries and decide the number of areas which will comprise Dublin Corporation jurisdiction in the future.
The Bill will also give him power to decide the number of representatives in each area. The point then arises as to whether it will be five people in each area or will the entire number exceed the 45 persons now in the Corporation? That point has not been clarified either. Before asking us to consider and accept the Bill, the Minister should have outlined his proposal. Certainly, we cannot be expected to accept the Bill without assurances and without clarification in respect of the points I have mentioned.
I examined the Minister's reply in the Dáil and all those matters were omitted. It was a rather brief debate in the other House, the implications of the Bill apparently not being appreciated. The Minister has more or less put it to us that the Bill is urgently required in order to have the situation rectified before the corporation elections and in good time for the preparation of the register. That is fair enough but when he asked us for urgent acceptance of the proposed changes he should have given us an outline of his proposals. Instead, he proposes if and when he gets this Bill —and I do not think he will—to prepare a scheme for the Dublin Corporation elections apparently without consulting the members of the Corporation or the city manager, and to plant that order on the table of the House there to remain for seven days during which it can be rescinded by a majority of the House.
Of course, the Minister is as well aware as we are that his Party have a majority and that even if we object to what he plants on the table of the House no voting in the House will change his decision. Therefore, it is unsatisfactory at this stage to have to say to the Minister: "We will wait to see what you place on the table of the House before letting you know whether we like it." It will be too late then. We must be given assurances now: We must know now what the Minister is asking us to give him in the Bill.
The Minister mentioned that general amending legislation is now being drafted. I suggest it is desirable that this general amending measure should be brought before the House on the principle of one man one vote. We have departed from the situation in which voting power was determined to some extent by valuation. For instance, under the 1930 Local Government Act commercial interests in the city had a right to five out of 35 seats in the corporation. Valuations, therefore, had representation. The burgesses of Dublin would not have been burgesses if they had not been valuation holders in olden times. Now we have moved to the situation in which it will be one man one vote though this may seem unfair to some heavy ratepayers such as business houses, limited companies, large commercial interests who pay colossal rates and have not got even one representative of that huge valuation and the rates that valuation entails.
The one man one vote system is democratic and is regarded in this country as the fairest system of election and now we have come to the point at which population will decide representation in the corporation but we still do not know the number of areas there will be, the boundary line or the number of seats in each area. All that should have been specified before the Minister put before us a Bill which will empower him to lay an order on the table of the House.
I suppose it is fair to say the Minister will not be unmindful of Party advantages if he is to have areas with a different number of seats making up a total of 45 or perhaps more, whichever is decided. He mentioned general amending legislation to cover all the problems that will arise with the passing of time because of extension of the borough boundary and movement of population. In the meantime, however this Bill is required, as I said at the outset, to amend an omission from the 1963 Act.
I feel the Minister, when he was making his statement, should have put those points before us instead of our asking him questions at this stage. Apparently Dublin Corporation have not been consulted and have not been warned about the proposed alterations and it would be only on getting this Bill through that the Minister would prepare the areas and notify the corporation regarding his scheme. He is the person entitled to determine these things. He is entitled to decide the areas and the representation.
Dublin Corporation have not got the power to make these decisions. At the same time, in fairness to the councillors and the citizens of Dublin the corporation should be consulted and their advice sought in relation to the proposed alterations. Nobody will dispute the fact that alterations are necessary. It has been pointed out that in one area in Dublin city there are only 15,000 electors and they are represented by five councillors and in another there are 56,000 people also represented by five members on Dublin Corporation. It is obvious that a very small number of people are over-represented owing to the distribution of the population within the city boundaries.
It is obvious that regular periodic revision of electoral areas is necessary to ensure equal representation for the citizens. It is a very long time since an adjustment was made before. Apparently the Minister will have the power to do this in this Bill. In fact, he has so much power in this Bill that it will hardly be necessary for amending legislation at a later stage unless he omits some matters which may take longer to prepare and which would involve special legislation. Certainly, he will have power in this Bill to do a lot which a general amending Bill could do at a later stage.
I know the Minister wants this Bill urgently but in its present form it will give him powers which are far too wide considering that he has not specified what exactly he proposes to do in relation to the subdivision of the city into electoral areas. It is about 20 years or more since the Dublin Corporation boundary areas were determined. When the Minister is replying I hope he will give us some idea regarding the representation which he recommends now for the citizens of Dublin on Dublin Corporation having regard to the number and complexity of public services which they administer.
When the Dublin Constituency representation was being considered in 1959 and debated here I feel that the problems which are obvious now should then have been obvious. The Minister said they could not have been as obvious as they are now and I agree with him but the trend was there. The population of Dublin is increasing at the rate of nearly 200 people per week, certainly 175 people per week, which is a very rapid increase. It is an increase of approximately 25 people per day in the city. This is a problem which we must deal with so far as representation on the corporation is concerned and the administration of the various services. The corporation is the local body which administers the services of all the Government Departments. No doubt these services could never be administered were it not for the unselfish voluntary work done by the members of these bodies.
Another thing which will confront the Minister is that the number of votes needed in a Dublin Corporation area to elect a councillor may be five times as many as the number required to elect a councillor in some of our other cities, Galway, Cork, Waterford and Kilkenny. If a councillor is representing, say, 35,000 people here in Dublin city compared with a couple of thousand in one of the other cities it can be seen that it is almost physically impossible for him to attend to all the work involved and associated with the public service administered by the corporation.
At the moment the citizens of Dublin are represented by 45 members. If we increase the number to perhaps 75, at least the burden on the shoulders of the councillors and aldermen will be lightened somewhat.
When the Minister, who will be deciding the date of the local elections, came to the Seanad today telling us that he wanted this Bill through as quickly as possible as it was urgently necessary to have it in order that the preparation of registers and arrangements for the elections could proceed, the least he might have done was to state the date of the elections. It is not impossible for the Minister to state the date of the elections. I know the Fianna Fáil Party shied away from the elections last year and the year before but they will have them next June we believe. If they are going to have them next June, why not state the date on which it is proposed to have them and let the various local authorities get on with their printing work, the preparation of registers and all the work associated with local elections? The sooner the election date is made known the better. When the Minister says he wants a Bill urgently, the least we might expect from him is an indication as to the date on which it is proposed to have the elections. This Bill relates only to Dublin, because there was no provision made in the 1963 Act for the recognition of alderman in Dublin city. That was an extraordinary omission. Again, the Minister did not make any reference as to how it came about that the provision for alderman in Dublin city was omitted.
We have to be very careful on this question of gerrymandering because it is obvious there are various issues, burning questions, at present which would tempt the Minister to become involved in the kind of gerrymandering we had before. For instance, we have the agitation by the rentpayers in Dublin city. They are marching through the streets, holding meetings and seeking to have deputations received. The question of determining the rents of the houses is a very live issue. It is possible that the Minister will shy away from a decision in relation to the rents. It is the Minister who decides he will shy away from that decision until after the corporation elections. Of course, another way to weaken the tenants, to weaken the agitation and the representation, would be to draw the boundary lines conveniently in various areas. That would have the effect of weakening the representation the rentpayers would have otherwise. This would also apply to ratepayers associations. There are ratepayers associations in and around Dublin. In fact they are represented on Dublin Corporation. Again, the drawing of boundary lines could ensure that the ratepayers of Dublin city would not have direct representatives elected. I have made these points to illustrate the power the Minister is seeking now —to draw those lines, make these boundaries, and he would not be human if he did not take into consideration the advantages for his own Party in drawing those lines.
People have said that the title of alderman is out of date and ineffective as far as Dublin city is concerned. An alderman in Dublin city is a person who secures election to one of the first five seats in each of the nine areas, whereas aldermen in Belfast and in English cities are the senior members of the corporations and county councils — seniority is the element, compared with election to one of the first five seats here. A person here could contest a corporation election for the first time and, if he secured election to one of the first five seats, would be an alderman. That situation does not exist in cities outside Dublin, where seniority on the council is the deciding factor. Even so, I think a departure from the old description would be a pity because Dublin city has a great history and a long tradition. If you are to start abolishing Lords Mayor and aldermen, why not throw Cromwell's chain into the Liffey? That chain was presented to Dublin city by Cromwell. It is treasured and we are proud of the long link in history down through the years.
