Michael Kennedy (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this issue but I regret that we will not be having a vote on it. We could be doing something more important, which I will allude to later on. I am delighted that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, is present.

I sincerely hope that the Constituency Commission and the Minister will reflect strongly on what Deputies say here today. I also hope they will urgently reconsider the outcome of the commission's report. I have been straight with my opinion on the findings contained in the Constituency Commission's report. In short, I believe many of its recommendations to be ludicrous. I am not casting aspersions on the Constituency Commission itself. I recognise its members are all very eminent and honourable people. I am aware that they have no agenda in putting forward this report but I do not believe that they, or anybody this House, are infallible, as other speakers have said.

Some of the report's recommendations have been short-sighted. Let us look briefly at some of the areas which are going to be radically altered in the commission's new plan. Aside from my own constituency of Dublin North, many other areas are also affected such as Limerick West, which is to be incorporated into north Kerry, while parts of Meath East will move into the Louth constituency and parts of south Offaly into Tipperary North. In addition, Leitrim remains divided into two Dáil constituencies. There is a blatant ignorance of contiguous boundaries, especially in Offaly where the new constituency not only breaks geographical and county boundaries, but also provincial borders.

These proposals make no sense for many Deputies, especially my colleagues in Dublin North. I am referring specifically to the recommendation to transfer a large proportion of the town of Swords from the Dublin North constituency to that of Dublin West, some 11 kilometres to the west of Swords.

Swords is the largest town in north County Dublin and is the tenth largest town in the country. It is larger than Navan, Kilkenny or Sligo, all of which have their own urban district councils or town councils, which to date Swords does not have. Swords has a population of over 33,000 people and is a large sprawling town primarily comprising housing estates and a village centre. It is isolated from other areas as it is prevented from joining Santry and Ballymun because of its proximity to Dublin airport. It is also prevented from reaching as far as Malahide by virtue of the M1 motorway, and from Blanchardstown because of the miles of agricultural hinterland in between.

It is by far the most identifiable stand-alone town in the north Dublin region. Ideologically, the people of Swords very much identify themselves as north County Dubliners. They have issues that are specific to the north county region. In addition, they align themselves more with other towns in the area, such as Balbriggan, Skerries, Donabate, Rush, Lusk, Malahide and Portmarnock, rather than with the west Dublin areas of Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart and Castleknock. Simply to draw a line down Swords' main street and decide that everyone to the west of that line should now vote in a different constituency, Dublin West, 11 kilometres away, is at best short-sighted and at worst plainly inconsiderate — I mean inconsiderate in the most basic sense, as outlined in a report prepared by the Swords electoral boundary action group.

The independent Constituency Commission has not properly considered the issue of under-representation in Dublin North and Dublin West, or how best to deal with it. Both constituencies are significantly under represented in the Dáil. It is ludicrous to remove 13,000 people and relocate them on the Dublin West electoral register in order to support it as a four-seater constituency.

Ireland has experienced a major population boom which no one could have anticipated. My constituency of Dublin North has over 20% more citizens per Deputy than a more balanced constituency which has 30,000 people per Member. This is the issue at the heart of these proposals — to readdress the balance across the country's constituencies. Both Dublin North and Dublin West have too few Dáil representatives. The easy answer, which the commission recommends, is to remove a section of the population from Dublin North and add it to Dublin West, thus making Dublin West a four-seater constituency. As a result, the commission argues, the remaining population in Dublin North would be more appropriate to its current level of representation. This answer is simple and effective, no doubt, and in theory it works very well. However, my dispute is not with the method but with the result.

There are other areas contiguous to Dublin West, but why were they not considered? Why not consider the next census, which will undoubtedly see an increase in Dublin West's population and in Dublin North's, allowing it to be considered as an automatic four-seater constituency? This point has clearly not been taken into account.

What will happen in 2012 or 2017 when the Constituency Commission realises that Dublin West's population has boomed again and has the added burden of over 13,000 people from Swords still based in the constituency? The logical plan at that point would be to redraw the boundary lines again and reunify Swords in the Dublin North constituency. This makes the current exercise seem entirely pointless, not to mention the confusion and disenfranchisement felt by the people of Swords who will have spent at least two election campaigns wondering not who to vote for, but who they have the right to vote for.

Given Fingal County Council's new population projection for Swords, which will see its population reaching 100,000 with the advent of the metro rail system, the area will be operating as a city within ten to 15 years.

Dublin North will most likely merit a five-seat constituency and the commission does not appear to have taken that into account. Simply put, the proposal by the Constituency Commission to split the primary town of Fingal, in other words Swords, into two electoral areas is ridiculous. I understand the justification for the proposal. No doubt the issue can be explained away with mention of the constitutional requirement to restore balance to the constituencies. Constitutionally, every 30,000 residents are entitled to one TD in the Dáil. At present this ratio is not satisfied in Dublin North or Dublin West and the Constituency Commission has shown its willingness to ignore contiguous areas in its willingness to redress the balance. I pointed out the geographical location of Swords and how it is identified as a stand-alone area.

The Electoral Act 1997, the same Act which established the Constituency Commission, states that each constituency "shall be composed of contiguous areas" and "there shall be regard for geographical considerations, including significant physical features and the extent of and the density of population in each constituency". This means that the Constituency Commission is legally obliged to have regard to natural geographically boundaries and the recommendation to split Swords certainly does not run in tandem with that.

The commission has been at pains to point out its motivation for moving a proportion of Swords into Dublin West. This comes back to the issue of redressing boundaries. The commission will argue that the constitutional obligation to provide a balanced constituency far outweighs the legal ramifications of not obeying geographical boundaries, but I would argue that it is wrong, given that the answer to this quandary is found in the commission's report:

In weighing up the issue of equality of representation versus adherence to natural townland boundaries, the Supreme Court took the following action, as detailed in the Constituency Commission's report, namely, it deferred to TDs and local representatives to identify the problems arising out of the redrawing of boundaries. In the section of the report relating to equality of representation, the commission's report quotes the Supreme Court judgment on the matter of Article 26 of the Constitution and the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 1961. It states: "The problem of what is practicable is primarily one for the Oireachtas, whose members have a knowledge of the problems and difficulties to be solved which this court cannot have." The removal of 13,000 voters from Swords to Dublin West does not make sense given that we speak about splitting county boundaries, but splitting town boundaries is absolutely crazy.

Following the ending of this debate I would like the issue to be referred back to the Constituency Commission to reconsider not only my area but all the other areas because I do not believe we should automatically accept its report. Everything we do in this Chamber is debated and voted on. I am not casting aspersions on the members of the commission — they are honourable people — but in this instance I believe they have got it wrong. We should all be big enough to say, let us go back and look at it.

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