Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

I am concerned that this is a two part Bill. One part deals with the decision of an independent commission established by the Oireachtas and inserted in section 6, namely, an adjustment due to the poor administration of a former holder of the office, the former Minister, Deputy Cullen. It would have been better to introduce a separate Bill dealing with the mess the former Minister made of the legislation instead of linking it with the commission's Bill to establish the constituencies for the next general election.

This is an important point because, regardless of what is included in any proposal from an electoral commission, Members on all sides of the House are committed to that. There is absolutely no doubt about the integrity of the commission or the integrity of its decision. It is now inextricably linked to the mess for which the former Minister is responsible. It is incredible that he wasted €50 of taxpayers' money on electronic voting. He behaved in a most arrogant manner as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. When the noble and great former Minister was introducing his botched provisions on Second Stage of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2004, he said:

Nobody can doubt that the Opposition has a responsibility in seeking to illuminate aspects of public policy according to its own judgment. Some of the debate on this matter has been useful — much has been inaccurate, sometimes wilfully so. I have no doubt that at certain times in recent debates, Fine Gael spokespeople genuinely have not known what they were talking about.

So much for the former Minister. Today the current Minister, Deputy Roche, has proven that the former Minister did not know what he was talking about, that he had not got a clue and that——

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