Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

He is like all of them, the minute he goes away he forgets about it. When he comes up here he thinks he is among the people, but he is not really. The minute one leaves the west, one leaves the people and the country. I hope the Minister will not forget his roots, like Deputy Gormley. He seems to have forgotten his roots since he left Limerick. When he was in Opposition he had many roots, but he has none at all now he is with Fianna Fáil.

If the Constituency Commission makes a recommendation we must accept it even if we do not like it. There is no point in establishing a commission if we are not going to accept its rulings. There will not be a vote following these statements but if there was, some of the Fianna Fáil Members would vote with the Government even though they spoke against some aspects of the report. They would not do the right thing for their own constituents. I hope that when the commission is reformed and considers the latest census and the constituencies, it will stop breaking down boundaries and putting parts of counties into others where people do not want them. The situation is similar to local GAA teams who love their areas and their counties and want to be part of that. When some Galway people were in Mayo they felt they were not being represented because they had no great love for Mayo politicians. They would prefer to have been voting for their own politicians in their own county.

On behalf of the people of Leitrim, I appeal to the three Ministers present to see if anything can be done for that county. Leitrim forms part of Deputy Perry's constituency but he is from Sligo and it is wrong that County Leitrim has no representation in this House. It is a small county but it is entitled to have representation here. That matter should be examined, particularly when the new boundary commission is re-established. It should be readdressed so that Leitrim can have the Dáil representation to which it is entitled. I want Fine Gael representatives and I also want Deputy Perry to be left there. He should have more help from the Fine Gael representative in Leitrim, Michael Comiskey. It is important that Leitrim has Dáil representation.

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