That is what I expected Senator O'Toole to say. The Senator said the population dropped. Senator O'Toole is a Mayoman and he is giving facts. He would like to give the people of the west from Clare to Donegal the impression that it would be contrary to the constitution and to the High Court's ruling to leave 30 seats in Connacht, Clare and Donegal. I should like to submit that Senator O'Toole has been completely misled in this assertion. I believe I can prove that this area could be left with 30 seats without any breach of the Constitution or of any breach of the ruling of the High Court in 1961.
At that time there was tremendous criticism of the rural bias. It was suggested it was unconstitutional to give a bias to rural Ireland. The Dubliner's vote was only worth threequarters of the rural vote. There were many who believed that bias should be given to the rural areas because of the long distances that the public are forced to travel to meet their Deputies or the long distances that Deputies must travel in the interests of their constituents. It was pointed out then, as it is now, that a Deputy could walk through his constituency in this city in a very short time. The people of Dublin have easy access to their Deputies, in their homes, in their businesses and particularly in Leinster House. We all know that when the Dáil is in session the people of Dublin avail of that privilege in coming to Leinster House day after day, evening after evening to meet their Deputies. Anyone with any sense of justice, with any sense of fair play, must surely admit that the situation is very different in rural Ireland. This point was made very clear on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill in 1959 in Dáil Éireann when in Volume 177, column 402, the late Deputy Michael Donnellan said:
There are more representatives for Dublin city than for the whole Province of Connacht. Is that fair? I do not think it is. It may be argued in the fashion in which Deputy O'Higgins argued it, but I hold that mathematics are only one aspect of the matter. How many people now residing in Dublin City had to leave the province of Connacht because they had to do so? These people are a loss to Connacht and to the Irish nation because if they could have remained in Connacht they would have produced raw materials, what I would call "new money," for this country. ...I must congratulate the Minister on the Bill. I am voting for it just as it stands, word for word.
Somewhere in his speech on that occasion Deputy Donnellan named the number of Deputies in Dublin. Deputy Donnellan, before his untimely death, was of course a strong supporter of two Coalition Governments and his son followed his footsteps and is a supporter of the present Government. Deputy Donnellan was in a position then to be independent in that he was not attached to one of the major parties. I am quite sure that his son shares the views of his highly respected father but he is not in a position to express his views. I wonder what would his father say today when he would discover that County Clare, the province of Connacht and County Donegal between them will be able to elect only 28 Deputies in the future and that the city of Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown between them will send 43 Deputies to Dáil Éireann.
No matter which Government are in office, those of us living in the west and north-west want to see that area prosper if at all possible, and every voice irrespective of political views, is a voice that in one way or another can help this area. I would not mind if it was necessary to deprive this area of two Deputies, but it is not and it is false and misleading propaganda to suggest that it is. I believe I can prove that, if the Minister had applied to the west the same population ratio per Member as he did to the city of Dublin and other places, two seats could have been retained in the west.
In the table in the explanatory memorandum we find some very interesting information. We find, for example, that in the proposed new constituency of Donegal there will be a population of 21,102 per Member but in Dublin South-East we find that there will be a population of 19,292 people per Member. This suggests to me that the Government believe that it takes 21,102 Donegal people to be as good as 19,292 Dublin people. I think that it is an insult not alone to our democratic institutions but to the people of Donegal that the constituencies could be arranged in such a way that in Dublin South-East 19,000 people can elect a Deputy but in Donegal it takes over 21,000, a difference of 1,810 people per Deputy which, in effect, means that in the new Donegal constituency 9,050 people have been disenfranchised.
The Minister of course used the tolerance ratio as permitted by the High Court in favour of the people of Dublin South-East in the hope that the National Coalition Government will have two Deputies elected and that Fianna Fáil will have one. There is no point in the Labour Party saying that there will be a fair division of one for each party. There are two parties in this country, Fianna Fáil and the National Coalition Government, and constituencies such as Dublin South-East have been designed so as to ensure a two-to-one representation in favour of the National Coalition. The Minister could have used the 1,000 deviation in the national average in favour of the west if this Government had any interest in the west and so maintained the two Deputies in this area.
The national average is 20,123. The Minister is permitted by the Constitution and by the High Court ruling of 1961 to have 19,123 people elect a Deputy. If he had done that in County Clare all he needed was a population of 57,369 instead of 62,731. He has a surplus in County Clare of 5,362 people who are not getting the same treatment as the people in Dublin South-East, Dublin South-Central, Dublin North-Central, Dublin (Clontarf) and Dublin (Cabra). Indeed if we look at County Louth, where it takes 19,149 people to elect a Deputy, I believe I am entitled to ask this House why, in County Louth, can 19,149 people be allowed to elect a Deputy whereas in County Donegal 21,102 people are required to elect a Deputy. In Roscommon-Leitrim 21,119 people elect a Deputy and in Sligo-Leitrim 21,010 elect a Deputy. The people of Donegal, of Roscommon-Leitrim and of Sligo-Leitrim have every right to question this undemocratic legislation when in their areas it takes almost 2,000 more to elect a Deputy than in most of the Dublin constituencies and in the Louth constituencies.
Of course, there is a reason in Louth, an obvious reason, why this Government will emphatically deny that they even considered their political fortunes in designing these constituencies. Louth was a three-seat constituency, Fianna Fáil hold two seats and Fine Gael one. It has now become a four-seat constituency, and no matter how the political fortunes of Fianna Fáil improve in this area no one would claim that Fianna Fáil could take three out of four seats. It is obvious therefore that in County Louth the Minister is hoping that by adding an extra seat to this area he can get a Labour Deputy elected. In doing so he is allowing 19,149 people to elect a Deputy, whereas in the three constituencies in the north-west it takes 21,000 people.
As I said earlier, if the Minister had used the national deviation as permitted by the Constitution and the High Court ruling in favour of the west as he did in Louth, Dublin and other areas, we would have had a surplus of 5,362 people in Clare, 6,684 in East Galway, 1,832 in West Galway, 2,941 in West Mayo, 447 in East Mayo, 9,894 in Donegal, 5,661 in Sligo-Leitrim and 5,989 in Roscommon-Leitrim, a grand total of 38,810 people in the area from Clare to Donegal. The surplus in that area, 38,810 people, would have been enough to retain the two Deputies and ensure that 30 Members could be elected from Clare to Donegal.
The Minister had the same right, indeed he had a greater right, to give preference to the west. It could be argued that our Constitution lays down that there should be an even distribution of seats per people throughout the country, but under this legislation an even division is not taking place. I accept that this is within the framework of the Constitution and the High Court ruling, but I have proved by the figures I have given that 30 seats could have been retained in this area. County Clare has a population of 62,731 for a three-seat constituency. It requires only 57,369 people to elect a Deputy in a three-seat constituency. That means that in County Clare there is a surplus of 5,362. If we go through all the constituencies, using the figures of 76,492 for four-seat constituencies and 95,615 for five-seat constituencies, it is pure and simple mathematics to discover that in this region from Clare to Donegal 38,810 people have for all intents and purposes been disenfranchised. If those 38,810 people were living in the city of Dublin they would be allowed by the present Minister and by the present Government to elect two Deputies. Because they are living in the west and north-west the Government are depriving them of their proper representation.
It is completely misleading and politically dishonest for anyone to suggest that two seats have been taken from Clare to Donegal because the Constitution and the High Court ruling so ordained. This is not true. The Government could have left 30 seats in this area had they so wished. Senator O'Brien told us during one of his interruptions that the Government won two seats in this area in the last election. I accept that. I accept that the west is responsible for the election of the present Government, but the present Government do not trust this area. What was won in 1973 could be lost on the next occasion. That is why they are taking steps to ensure that this will not happen. They are taking steps to ensure that never again will the west from County Clare to County Donegal, have their proper voice in the administration of this country.
If we study the figures for three counties—Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim —we will find that it was not necessary to deprive this area of the one seat which was taken from them. We will also find that that area could have been left intact without breaching the Constitution or the High Court order. In the new constituency of County Donegal, we have a population of 105,509 people, but if the Minister were to apply the same population ratio per Member in Donegal as he did in Louth or in Dublin, it would take only 95,615 people to elect five Deputies in this area. That means that 9,894 people—or half a Deputy—have been disenfranchised.
In the Sligo-Leitrim constituency we find a surplus of 5,661 people. It would take 5,661 fewer people to elect three Deputies in this constituency. In Roscommon-Leitrim we find that it would take 5,989 fewer people to elect a Deputy. If we add these three figures together—9,000 and the two 5,000s—we find that there is a surplus of about 21,000 in this area. This in effect means that Roscommon need not have been taken into consideration but that in the Counties Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal there is a surplus of over 19,000 people, which is sufficient according to the Constitution to maintain the Deputy that has been taken from them.
This crying about the Constitution and the High Court to justify foul gerrymandering in the west should cease. They should be honest about it. They should at least tell the truth and admit that this operation is to deprive the Fianna Fáil Party of two Deputies to which they are entitled. We have heard over the years the moaning and the groaning about County Leitrim, particularly by supporters of the present Government. Those supporters had a golden opportunity when this legislation was being prepared to protect the interests of County Leitrim. Obviously for political expediency and in order to ensure perpetuation and power for their own political parties they threw the interests of Counties Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal to the wolves.
Now we find that, as a result of this, in County Donegal we will have a constituency that extends 125 to 130 miles in length. A person could leave this city of Dublin and travel through the Six Counties and would have reached the County Donegal border before he would have travelled that distance. It is the same length through County Donegal as it is from this city to the city of Limerick. I wonder what the Irish people would say if any Government were to produce a plan to divide constituencies in such a way that even though a Deputy is elected in the city of Dublin his constituency would extend to the city of Limerick. I believe that there would be public outcry and that no Government would get away with this. Yet in this legislation the Minister proposes to have a five-seat constituency in the fourth largest county in this country—a constituency that extends from Malin Head to Glencolumbkille and from Bunbeg to Ballyshannon, a constituency that because of its size will make it very difficult for the electorate to get the representation to which they are justly entitled. This constituency has been so devised because the Minister and his Government know that in the present two constituencies of County Donegal Fine Gael have two seats out of six. Under the new arrangement Fine Gael could have two seats out of five.
The Minister knows that Fine Gael have a reasonable good chance of electing two Deputies out of five, thus depriving the county of Donegal and a portion of Leitrim of one representative. I might say that it is immaterial to me who that representative might be. Every voice that comes from Donegal is a voice. By reducing this number to five, there is one voice fewer.
I believe that the Minister could have left these two constituencies. While I understand that in the constituency in which I live myself, North East Donegal, the population has increased, and that it might have required minor adjustments, it is wholly wrong to create one single unit in a county such as ours. I was somewhat surprised to discover, when this legislation was discussed in the Dáil, that certain people who participated in the debate were not armed with the facts. The Minister disagreed with Deputy Molloy on the population figures for Dublin city. As reported at column 2014, Volume 268 of the Official Report he said:
To help Deputy Molloy may I say the average in the west is 20,509 and in the Dublin area it is 20,840...
Later on the Minister was sporting enough and honest enough to point out that the figures he had given were wrong and that, in fact, the figures given by Deputy Molloy were correct. At column 2092 of the same volume he said:
I stated in good faith from information I got that the average population for Deputies in Dublin was 20,840. I should like to correct that: I am now informed that the correct figure is 20,142.
As I said, the Minister was honest enough and sporting enough to correct a mistake he had made. The point I wish to make on this is that it would appear to me that the Minister and his advisers when framing this Bill were of the opinion that the average population for Deputies in Dublin was 20,840 and that he framed his Bill accordingly. It is in fact 20,142, or 700 less. It would appear to me that it was the Minister's intention to increase the tolerance ratio in Dublin to as near 21,000 as possible, as laid down by the Constitution, and that his intention was to have an average population of 20,840. He discovered that there was a mathematical error and that, in fact, the average population was 700 less per Member. When one considers that 43 Deputies are to be elected in the Dublin city area, then an error of 700 people per Member is a very serious error and amounts to 30,000 people, odd.
I have the impression that the Minister did not intend a tolerance ratio in Dublin city of the kind he has in the Bill and that he intended it to be as near the maximum as is humanly possible. When he discovered his mistake of 30,000 for 43 Members he would be justified in saying that the Dublin city area could do with two Deputies less, because these are the two Deputies who are being snatched from the west of Ireland, two Deputies Dublin could well do without and who are very useful and very important in the western part of this country.
The Minister was not the only person who spoke on this Bill and made mistakes. We find in column 2024 of the same volume that a former Member of this House, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, spoke about the County Donegal constituency. He said:
It was a five-seat constituency at one stage and even a seven- or eight-seat constituency far back. I do not think it was divided into two ... until Mr. Boland divided it and before that the previous Fianna Fáil revisionists had been happy to leave it in that condition. I do not know why. Perhaps it suited them.