Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I do not know about that.

The major question is whether the next general election will be fought on these new boundaries. We do not know the answer, partly because we do not know the population changes that may occur. Also, we do not have fixed term elections in Ireland. If we had elections regularly, every four or five years, as is the case in many other countries, people could plan accordingly. There would be greater certainty and this could be a factor in making a decision.

I understand the complaints people have about certain changes, particularly those affecting Limerick, Kerry, Leitrim, Meath and Louth. I especially understand the problems in Dublin. A cohesive town in north Dublin, possibly Swords, has been divided down the main street. Why dissect a cohesive urban area? This probably happened because of the commission's determination to keep the number of Deputies in the Dáil at 166. There is an increasing population in that part of the country — north Dublin, west Dublin and Louth — and it should have gained extra seats. The commission felt restricted by the need to keep the number of Deputies in the Dáil at 166 and this has resulted in extra changes being made.

Many other issues have been mentioned during this debate. Whether or not it is due to foresight, the figures of 20,000 and 30,000 set out in the Constitution are based on population, not voters or citizens. It is somewhat ironic that the courts upheld the decision to proceed with the preparation of a draft, as early as possible, based on the draft census and population. We all know people can move around and if one were to conduct a census today one might see a smaller population in some areas, though the number of Irish citizens and Irish-born people may not have changed.

It is up to the Oireachtas to decide the course to take on this but I expect the Bill will pass without undue difficulties in the House. That is how it should be but we should seek greater transparency in future commission reports — there should be scope for public submissions. The democratic deficit should be eliminated by investigating the fact the population per Deputy is 25,000, compared to 20,000 a few years ago.

It was suggested in the House that single-seat constituencies could be a help but I oppose this. It might suit politicians to be elected and have no challenger but that is why I oppose such a system — it is bad for the public. In England, Labour Party voters in a constituency represented by a Conservative will feel disenfranchised and will not be inclined to approach him or her. In Ireland it would be wrong to start dividing four-seaters into four single-seat constituencies because people of another allegiance would feel they did not have a representative in the national Parliament. This system would be convenient for Deputies but would be bad generally. We always talk about competition in the marketplace and the little bit of competition we must endure in three, four and five seat constituencies keeps us on our toes, whether we like it or not. We might complain about residents' groups writing to each TD in a constituency but it keeps us busy and serves the electorate. People have said a complaint in an area leads to a great deal of correspondence for local authorities and State bodies but there would not be so many letters if the local authorities and State bodies operated more efficiently in the first place. It is not the fault of the public if people must go to their elected representatives to get action from a Government body in the area. Besides, a change to single-seat constituencies would require a constitutional referendum.

Also with regard to single-seat constituencies, it is important that the public not only has a choice on polling day but has a choice every day between general elections, thanks to having a choice of representatives in Parliament. Choice in a democracy means more than having a choice one day every five years.

Electronic voting was also mentioned in the House and it was suggested that the people of Ireland love using a pencil to vote. This is not the case — the last general election saw 25,000 spoiled votes by people using a peann luaidhe. They marked X twice or three times or marked two ones or two twos and so on. In many constituencies the number of spoiled votes exceeded the difference between the last candidate elected and the next candidate in line. Awful mistakes occur in votes cast using a peann luaidhe. Some 500 or 600 people in each constituency, over 20,000 nationwide, went home from the polling station thinking they had voted for their candidate of choice. Those votes, effectively, went into the bin because of the peann luaidhe. One of the advantages of electronic voting is it would not allow this to happen. Most of us know a person who might wish to vote for three candidates in an election and so placed an X next to each of their names. This achieves nothing.

In the interests of allowing the people to cast their votes correctly, we must move away from the existing system that leads to many spoiled votes and people's disenfranchisement.

A number of other issues were mentioned in the course of this campaign in terms of the conduct of elections and the voters' register. While one could talk forever——

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