Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I support the amendment. As Kildare North is one of the few constituencies to which a seat will be added, Members may question why I support Deputy Gilmore's proposal. Deputy O'Dowd gave the reason when he said what we sought was fair representation. Not only is it possible that someone will go to court to prove representation is not fair, the preliminary figures may well prove both Kildare South and Kildare North to be in breach of the minimum level of representation.

A subject at which I was always reasonably good in school was mathematics and I have added up the population figures for those moving from Kildare South to Kildare North and the number of house starts multiplied by three, which is the accepted figure, from 2002 on. The figure I have calculated is very close to 30,000, which is worse than the figure adjudicated on in the constituency revision. The population of Kildare has consistently grown over the years. On one occasion, the number of seats in the then Kildare constituency increased from three to five. The number of seats in the county has changed after almost every census of population in the recent past.

There is an element of underprovision in the terms of reference for constituency changes in the failure to use a population minimum of 20,000 as the benchmark rather than an approximate average. If a 20,000 minimum were used, it would avoid crises and potential court challenges. It is not difficult to do the maths in this instance and arrive at a figure of approximately 30,000 in both Kildare South and Kildare North. Not only is there the potential for a court challenge, there is also a breach of constitutional provisions. In the circumstances, a court challenge is almost certain to succeed.

There is a need to establish four seats in both Kildare constituencies without the transfer of additional population from Kildare South to Kildare North. People in the rural part of Kildare North never really know who is representing them, which is not especially positive. They are in one constituency at one election and in another at the next. One can almost certainly predict they will be transferred back to Kildare South at the next general election given the way the numbers are stacking up. It will be very difficult to ignore the figures if they are published in July 2006, at which time Kildare will be the county on which to focus for breaching the 30,000 threshold. On those grounds, I commend the amendment.

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