Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

A box can be ticked to prevent that happening. Specific guidance has gone out.

Deputy Gilmore and another speaker touched on the issue of the constituency revision. Any party that has been in government in the past 20 years knows the position. The Attorney General advised the Government that constituencies can only be revised on the basis of final census figures. This is not new advice as it is in accordance with the advice of previous Attorneys General. Constitutionally, the preliminary figures cannot be used to revise the constituencies. We have not only advice in this respect, there is also case law.

The Electoral Act 1997 provides that a constituency commission should be established upon the publication of the census report, which is the final report on the census. As Minister, I do not have the right to put to one side the constitutional reality I face. I intend to establish the commission when the census report containing the final figures is published. There will be no delay in appointing the commission. The good electoral legislation on which this reality is based was introduced by Deputy Gilmore's party colleague. He knows from the advice given to his colleague that the suggestion that I could do something unconstitutional is mendacious and disingenuous. The advice given to me is not different from previous legal advice and it is not possible to do as Deputy Gilmore has suggested.

My ministerial function in the context of these procedures is to establish a constituency commission to review and report on the Dáil election in accordance with the relevant constitutional and statutory requirements. I will discharge that statutory duty to the letter and spirit. As soon as the relevant CSO census report is published, I will establish the constituency commission as the legislation provides. Under the Electoral Act 1997, the commission will be required to report to the Ceann Comhairle, not to the Minister, within a period of six months of its establishment. The report shall then be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and any necessary changes made. That is a process of which everybody in this House is aware and which is established in statute. The previous process and any ambiguities in it were dealt with in the Electoral Act 1997. There has been much deliberate muddying of the water about this issue. The reality is that it does not matter who stands here as Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. We cannot decide to take a pick and mix attitude towards the Constitution.

This has been a positive debate. Deputy O'Dowd, who was outside the Chamber momentarily, made a good point to which I want to refer while he is here. I believe that cross-party consensus is necessary for electoral change.

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