Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I should learn a lesson from this not to recommit an amendment. Before we adjourned, I set out my concerns with the approach proposed in the amendment by Deputy Gilmore. After every census, the Central Statistics Office publishes the results on a phased basis. Volume 1, containing the population classified by area, has the necessary final data to enable a constituency commission to review constituencies in accordance with the relevant legislation, the Constitution and case law. The CSO publishes a preliminary report a number of months after a census, but it contains provisional information which is subject to revision and which is not regarded as having any statutory force.

While there is always a possibility of legal challenge in matters relating to constitutional law, I am satisfied that it would not be the correct approach to ask the commission to operate and to make recommendations on a basis other than the final census results. Neither should the Oireachtas be asked to evaluate a commission report prepared on such a basis. The approach we are following reflects the statutory requirement since enactment of the Electoral Act 1997 and the practice extending back over a much longer period.

The case law in the area supports the approach we are following. For these reasons, I do not favour using the initial figures for a revision of constituencies as would be required by the terms of the proposed amendment. I suggest to the Deputy that he does not press the matter further.

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