Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

There are a number of amendments before the House on specific constituencies. Leitrim is the key to amendment No. 2 and was the subject of lengthy debate on Committee Stage. Amendment No. 6 addresses in principle the need to put in place the infrastructure to allow the commission to deal with constituencies in a broader sense. It seeks to provide that each constituency shall return three, four, five, six or seven Members. Meath and Kerry are two of a number of constituencies which would be affected by the amendment.

I seek to achieve a greater degree of proportionality per constituent, while retaining the integrity of the constituency boundaries. While constituencies which accord to county boundaries are more common in rural areas, the principle is also relevant to Dublin where almost all of the constituencies north of the Liffey contain three seats and most of those south of it are five seaters. It is ironic that after partition in the early 1920s, we had constituencies with up to nine Deputies. In spite of the turbulence of that period, the founders of the State saw fit to put in place constituencies offering significant proportionality in terms of representation. Unfortunately, Governments on both sides of Britain's border in Ireland have since sought to employ deliberately negative electoral engineering policies with which we are all familiar such as gerrymandering in the North and Tullymandering in the South. Notwithstanding all of this, the issue of real import in my amendment is that of proportionality. That is the crucial element.

It is important to point out that the concept of four seat, five seat and even six seat and seven seat constituencies is not that new. In the North all constituencies of the Legislative Assembly are six seaters. That position is fully supported by the Government for which I commend it but why can we not have the same level of proportionality here? The greater the number of seats in a constituency, the greater the level of proportionality. The division of County Meath into two three seat constituencies is a perfect example of this, as is the division of County Kerry into two three seat constituencies. Now we have this ludicrous proposal regarding the division of County Leitrim into two parts, each of which would be linked to two other constituencies. Surely one large constituency would be preferable? This could involve a six seat constituency of Sligo-Leitrim or a constituency of Sligo-Leitrim-Roscommon with a greater number of seats. That is what I am trying to achieve in the amendment.

My aim is not to be prescriptive. A number of the other amendments are prescriptive in dealing with the issue of County Leitrim alone. What I seek to achieve through my amendment is to give the constituency commission terms of reference which would facilitate a detailed examination of all of the constituencies and allow it to arrive at a conclusion that would take on board the level of proportionality involved while maintaining the integrity of county boundaries. As I have illustrated, this can be carried through in the case of cities like Dublin and Cork.

Unfortunately, when we examine the case of Dublin, it is inexplicable that there is a host of three seat constituencies on one side of the river while there are a number of five seat constituencies across it. I do not object to five seat constituencies on the south side but greater proportionality should be afforded on the north side also. This should apply throughout the State wherever there is a lack of proportionality.

We must amend the legislation to facilitate the constituency commission in carrying out its work more effectively. I do not wish to be prescriptive about any constituency but we should give the commission a framework that would allow it to do its work as an independent body more broadly. I look forward with interest to the Minister's comments.

See this speech in context