John Dennehy (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

From 1974 I was elected in five local elections. While in the first election I was the second candidate elected, in the other four I topped the poll. It was obviously a devastating blow to me in my career prospects but people may say that kind of treatment goes with the job and politicians need to put up with it. I accept that.

I am concerned that the people affected by that exercise, the electorate, could be treated in that fashion. The Minister of State, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, who has just joined us will be aware of the political chaos for the two elections following the boundary changes. Deputy Cuffe referred to local authority constituencies being synchronised with their Dáil counterparts. In this case, the local authority representatives straddled two different Dáil constituencies, which was scandalous and chaotic and did not represent good democracy. The maps are available if people want to examine them.

The recommendation before us will comply with the terms of reference of the commission, as referred to in chapter 2.1(e) of its report, which states "there shall be regard to geographical considerations, including physical features and the extent of the density of population in each constituency." To people in Cork, the River Lee is the major physical feature on which the city was founded. In the past one of the boundaries followed a little laneway, down which I was told a natural spring had run 50 or 60 years earlier. Perhaps it, instead of the River Lee, was selected for this reason, which was a bad mistake. I mentioned my area as an example of how the requirement can be ignored. It was the worst example I could find of the inconveniencing of the electorate since the 1975 Tully review.

I am glad the mistakes appear to have been corrected on this occasion. Following the passage of the Bill, 25,918 people will be properly redesignated as south side residents and south side voters. If these people lived south of the Liffey in Dublin and somebody decided to put them into Dublin North-Central, there would be marches on the Dáil. It was not correct for the population from the south of the city to elect a Deputy for Cork North-Central.

I know that the members of the commission are committed to public service. I make the point to them that when it comes to numbers and equal representation versus the identification of the electorate with a given geographical area such as the River Lee, greater weight should be given to the latter aspect. The commission has considerable latitude with the figures. Regardless of occasional criticism of a particular constituency, the commission should give greater consideration to the geographical location of the electorate. Politicians may come and go and we are supposed to serve the electorate. Some public representatives have been foisted on different areas as a result of boundary changes, which does not serve the public well.

Deputy O'Dowd referred to electronic voting. I can draw on my expertise of electronic voting as opposed to a manual count. While the Minister of State, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, might correct me on this matter, I believe I am the only person in the history of the State to have overturned a declared result in a general election after a week of counting. However, that might not have happened if we had electronic voting and the votes were counted properly in the first instance. We might not have had a week of hardship. It is an item on which I am open to persuasion.

In general, our system of voting and organising is excellent. If we had more three-seat constituencies, it might facilitate voters' ability to live in an area with which they identify and to be represented by people they know and with whom they can identify. It gives people greater discretion. However, that is a matter for the Oireachtas to judge. If we opt for three seaters, it will be said that we are trying to knock out small parties. However, it should be examined.

As to the upkeep of registers, I agree with Deputy Cuffe that we should do much more to ensure the register is correct. Most of the staff involved have nine to five jobs and cannot visit people at home to confirm the register's accuracy. We need to examine the issue and do as much as possible on it.

I am also concerned about the implications of postal voting. Last year, I mentioned how I received an application form from my former trade union. One was simply to put one's name on the form to apply for one's postal vote. Nothing else was needed, the ballot paper would be sent out and one could then vote accordingly. This year, there are fears that there may be fraud in the postal voting system given that open approach. We should examine more ways of facilitating every single potential voter, be they fishermen or people who are suddenly admitted to hospital. We should exercise our imaginations more because we currently disenfranchise between 5% and 8% of the electorate in one way or another.

On behalf of the other Members and myself, I thank the returning officers and staff who have been involved in elections over the years. We have found them to be highly professional in their approach to the work. They are very committed, are able to put aside any political leanings they might have and get on with doing a good job. The election facilities have been referred to and there have been improvements, particularly with the voting stations. However, it is important that we maintain these standards and that the public should be facilitated during counts. I acknowledge the latter issue is not covered by this Bill.

In general, we have a good process. We will see our nearest neighbour's system in operation on 5 May. It is crazy that up to 70% or 80% of the seats involved in the UK election will not change hands because of the first past the post system. We have a proportional representation system which I would eventually like to see operating with single-seat constituencies, but that is a long way down the road. However, in the interests of democracy, our system far excels the UK system. Proportional representation is probably the best of all systems.

Personally, I prefer single-seat constituencies, but sin scéal eile. According to this Bill, each Member has an electorate of approximately 23,000 people. However, this is not the case. In a five-seat constituency, one has a potential electorate of 120,000 because of the multi-seat nature of the constituency. There are pro rata ratios for three and four-seat constituencies. It leads to the sort of difficulty I referred to earlier. Single-seat constituencies probably require fewer Deputies. The idea was floated at one time by the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey. He is still recovering from the knocks and kicks he then received, but single-seat constituency proportional representation would probably be acceptable.

One small item referred to by Deputy O'Dowd concerned the issue of resolving the postal services question. Despite the Deputy's comments, I am glad the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, took the opportunity to clarify the issue and to have it included in this Bill, rather than letting it hang on, thus raising the possibility of not having it resolved before the next election in two years' time. I welcome the Bill and I know its passage will be rapid. I sympathise with the difficulties faced by the people of Leitrim. From my experiences, I understand their fears, having had not a county but a local election constituency halved more or less overnight, which had a massive effect. I will allow their own representatives articulate their fears. I commend the Bill.

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