Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)

I will summarise the point I made earlier, given the gravity of the debate which has concluded. One must ask about today's Order of Business. Why is the House discussing the Electoral (Amendment) Bill when people outside it are talking about the economy, job losses, the health service and other important matters? If a child in the Visitors Gallery heard the debate which just took place, he or she would be aware of the importance of this House but if he or she had heard only the earlier debate on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, he or she would be of the view that politicians were talking about themselves at a time when everybody else wanted the House to talk about what is happening in the country.

As I said earlier, the Labour Party accepts the report of the commission and values the work it does. However, how it goes about its business needs to be examined as the terms of reference of the commission are set up by the Minister. The Labour Party believes the process, as currently sequenced, needs very serious examination. Currently, when the commission reports, the report comes to the House as a fait accompli. We would like an interim report to be sent to the stakeholders and those with an interest so that decisions made by the commission can be examined.

I welcome the fact that the Bill provides that within three months of a census report being published, the commission will begin to engage in its work again. However, there is a year between when the preliminary reports come out and when the census reports are fully published. The commission could begin to do its work even at the preliminary stage. There is no doubt that if boundaries had been reviewed in advance of the most recent election and they had reflected the changes in population experienced since 2002, the outcome of a number of constituencies would have been very different. However, nobody can say whether this would have changed the overall outcome of the election. Nevertheless, the structure of the most recent general election should have been examined in terms of how the constituencies were set out.

The terms of reference for the commission set out in the 1997 Act should be amended to protect our system of proportional representation and this should be the key reference for any work of the future commission. This is not just my view or that of a political party; it should be a constitutional requirement on the commission. Given the position of the stipulated voting system within the Constitution, this is not just a point of debate, but a constitutional fact.

In practical terms, this means if there are two or more possible configurations for constituencies in a particular locality, with due regard having been given to all relevant factors, the commission's leaning should be for one that provides for a smaller number of constituencies returning a greater number of Members, rather than a multiplicity of three-seat constituencies. Unfortunately, this is the practice developing from one commission report to another.

It is, therefore, necessary to set out the basic mathematics that show the purpose of proportional representation and a single transferable vote election is most successfully achieved in constituencies that return more than one Member. In the submission made last year by the Labour Party, we argued that a fundamental requirement of the commission was to protect the element of proportionality to ensure the closest possible correlation between the share of votes a party gets to the number of seats it secures. Statistics we provided to the commission clearly demonstrated that larger constituencies provide the greater degree of proportionality.

Unfortunately, the commission took little account of this, leaving the proportion of three, four and five-seat constituencies largely the same. More than one third of all constituencies are now three-seaters, the configuration that produces the least proportional outcome. For example, because the Ceann Comhairle is automatically returned, Kerry South will actually become a two-seater, which comes close to rendering the constitutional right of the people of Kerry South to proportional representation null and void. This situation will recur in any three-seater constituency with a sitting Ceann Comhairle.

The people have voted in referenda on two occasions to retain proportional representation. We should ensure that the value of this system is not undermined by inadequate terms of reference for the commission. I suggest the 1997 Act should be amended through the insertion of the following new paragraph in the commission's terms of reference:

The Commission shall, so far as practicable, recommend such arrangements in relation to the constituencies as are best calculated to result in an outcome where the number of Members of each qualifying party elected to Dáil Éireann, as a proportion of the total number of Members of the Dáil belonging to qualified parties, is the same proportion as the total number of first preference votes obtained by the candidates of each such qualifying party at the general election and this bears to the total number of first preference votes obtained by candidates of all qualifying parties at that election.

This would provide a more democratic outcome in a proportional representation system and I urge the Minister to take this on board.

The terms of reference should also be changed to allow for the creation of six-seater constituencies. We do not have any of these currently, but this should have been considered in the Kerry scenario and would have been appropriate and more favourable than our current two three-seat constituencies. These changes would result in a more open and transparent system for reviewing the constituencies, while preserving the principle of an independent process. They would provide results in which the public would have greater confidence and provide a bulwark against the further erosion of our system proportional representation. The commission itself should be looked at in the overall context of institutional reform. The role of the commission is not something that operates in isolation from other parts of the electoral process. This examination should result in a number of significant changes to the manner in which elections are organised and conducted in the State.

In order to achieve this goal, I intend to bring before the House an electoral commission Bill that would establish a new electoral and public offices commission to take over the powers of the existing Standards in Public Office Commission and the Referendum and Constituency Commission. The new body would also take over responsibility from local authorities for the electoral register and from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for the running of elections. Currently there is much talk about the convergence of State agencies to bring about greater efficiency. This area is a very obvious area for convergence. Not only would it provide more efficient elections, but we would also get an independent structure that would ensure the basic principles of the election process, particularly of proportional representation, are protected.

The Bill also provides for major changes in the process by which the constituencies are revised. In redrawing the constituencies, the commission will be required, so far as practicable, to recommend an arrangement of constituency sizes and boundaries that is best calculated to produce an overall proportionate result. To achieve this result, it will be able to recommend constituencies returning three, four, five or six Members. Currently, the maximum number is five.

The commission would also be able to commence work on redrawing the constituencies on the basis of the preliminary census figures, which would be more effective than the current system. However, I welcome the tidying up of this area to some extent within the three-month schedule, but by doing this at preliminary result stage, the job would be far easier to manage and provide for a better timeframe. If, for example, a census is envisaged within the lifetime of the current Government, we could find ourselves in a position where we are in the middle of a commission going into the next general election. I do not think that should be the case or that we should have commissions immediately after elections. Commissions should have their work completed well in advance, from 18 months to two years, before any general election.

The publication of a preliminary or draft report would address one of the major shortcomings of the current system, whereby once the commission produces its report, it cannot be asked to review the decision, no matter how illogical, irrational or inconsistent with its own terms of reference it may be. This situation was reflected in the Kerry-Limerick situation, where two local authorities, operating in two different counties and incorporating two different areas, have converged. This is probably a situation that will be redrawn and revised when the error of this approach becomes apparent. Some of the recommendations made in the most recent report, such as the transfer of 14,000 County Limerick voters to the Kerry North constituency would fall into this category. I am sure other Members are aware of similar cases in other constituencies.

The other major area of reform relates to the compilation of the electoral register. Despite some belated efforts made prior to the most recent election to update the register, anyone involved in active politics will be aware just how inaccurate the register remains. Before the most recent election, some €6 million was spent by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in an attempt to tidy up the register of electors, but this attempt failed spectacularly. In some parts of Ireland the register figures exceeded the census figures by 105%. There is something radically wrong when we have a situation where there are more registered voters for a constituency than are registered as living in it. Northern Ireland has a smaller population than us, but it can manage an almost perfectly accurate register of electors on a budget of €2.5 million a year. We threw €6 million at our system, on top of the existing budget, but still got it wrong.

My Bill also proposes to transfer to the commission the functions of local authorities for preparing and publishing the register of electors. The commission must seek to achieve the comprehensive, accurate and timely registration of persons entitled to be registered as electors in an efficient and economical manner. Currently we have 34 local authorities using 34 different systems with 34 varying levels of priority. Some local authorities take the management of the electoral system seriously, but others do not and deal with it in the basement of the city, county or town hall. It does not have equal priority and, therefore, a disparity exists in the register of electors figures across the country. I propose that a new commission would be entitled to access information from statutory bodies and utility companies in order to accurately record the names and addresses of electors. Such a commission would be able to use public service identity numbers to ensure the accuracy of the register, which is the case in Northern Ireland.

While many aspects of this Bill are positive, a number of opportunities have been lost. The most obvious of these is the opportunity to fundamentally reform the overall structure, not by tinkering with boundaries and constituencies but by creating a commission that governs the process of elections in this country on an independent basis. That would result in a more efficient, effective and measurable means of running elections in this country.

We are repeating the former system in regard to electoral reform. Where 12 five seat constituencies existed, we now have 11. The number of four seat constituencies has increased from 13 to 15, while three seat constituencies have decreased from 18 to 17. The overall trend is a drift away from five seat constituencies. However, an examination of the proportional representation shows that the larger the seat ratio per constituency, the better the proportional representation and the greater the democratic outcome. Most important of all, we have more assurance that the public will have the type of representation they seek. Unfortunately, that has been eroded by the commission's report and this Bill.

The electoral process is the cornerstone of our democratic system. It is essential that the public have full confidence in the reliability of the electoral register and the way in which constituency boundaries are determined. We need to examine this issue as a totality in terms of the systems of elections as well as the structures within which they are held. There is a need for reform in both areas. Structural reforms are needed in respect of expanding the remit of the commission and there is a need to tidy up the systems which currently exist. One obvious means of achieving these ends is the draft report which has been brought before us. However, if we are to be truthful to ourselves, we should admit that our current debate holds little prospect of for this outcome. I ask for changes to the process so that a democratic input is facilitated because the public needs to have confidence in the system.

The most glaring omission in this Bill is its missed opportunity to introduce spending limits on local elections. An anomaly exists in that while expenditure limits are imposed on general election candidates, there is no ceiling on local election spending, despite smaller voter bases and geographical areas. The only requirement is that records of expenditure must be supplied. We could be debating boundaries once again in three or four years time but the most immediate issue before us is the local elections. I question the Minister's position on this matter, given his earlier comments on it. It appears that his involvement in Government has diluted his opinion.

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