John Cregan (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute but I do not welcome the recommendations of the boundary commission. One can argue that all politics is local. While I am critical of the Constituency Commission, I am not questioning the independence and integrity of the people who sat on it. However, they got it badly wrong in a number of constituencies, including Limerick. Subsequent to the boundary changes, media reports in the Irish Independent referred to the winners and losers. Naturally the article refers to Kerry being a winner: "Rather than losing a TD, the Kingdom takes a chunk of west Limerick and retains its six TDs for the next general election." The article refers to Limerick as a loser: "The county loses a TD and is turned into a dogs dinner of three constituencies." If there was a difficulty with Kerry in respect of under representation, I cannot understand why the commission felt it had to meddle in Limerick, taking a sizeable chunk of the constituency I represent and putting it into a new constituency to be called North Kerry-West Limerick. It defies all logic and I cannot understand why that was done.

Deputy Varadkar has made many outlandish statements in this House since he was elected but his contribution today was sensible. His suggestion is the only obvious answer to this problem. On the other hand, Deputy Hogan referred to the Taoiseach's confused judgment because he suggested, at the early stage of this issue, that we should ask the Constituency Commission to introduce an interim report that the House could examine. If it were to throw up something as outlandish as what has occurred on this occasion, we would not allow it.

In law, these recommendations need not be accepted by this Parliament but it has been a matter of course for the past number of years that all recommendations of the Constituency Commission have been accepted. Deputy Hogan stated: "If we were to follow the Taoiseach's confused thinking on this subject, Members, as legislators, would be given the opportunity to change reports from the numerous commissions and so on, for example, on the health services." That is not being considered for one moment but I feel strongly that the Constituency Commission can, with the stroke of a pen, take away my career.

See this speech in context