Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

An invitation was certainly issued. I am also disappointed he did not attend the public demonstration on Sandymount Green. Notwithstanding that, I appreciate the fact that he is here, because this is an extremely important issue. It relates specifically to a decision which will have the effect of driving a wedge through the heart of Sandymount, one of the oldest, strongest and most vibrant communities in Dublin city. The decision made in this instance is erroneous and I hope that the Minister will listen to my point and reconsider it.

I find it very disheartening to see terms of reference set out by a Cabinet Minister for a boundary commission which are flagrantly ignored. That is precisely what has happened in the local electoral boundary changes for the Dublin city area. Sandymount is one of the oldest communities in Dublin and epitomises all that is good in community life in an urban setting, especially in Dublin city. It has a great historical wealth that traces back to the Pembroke Estate and is a very important village in Dublin's urban heritage and its cultural fabric. It is a very cohesive community, with a very distinctive geographical and social environment, centred around the green area and along Sandymount Strand.

The reasons for the boundary commission were clear and my party supported them. There was a need to redress the imbalances in local representation around the country. The objective was to redraw the local electoral boundaries, with a view to ensuring a reasonable relationship between the 2006 population and representation within each local authority. My party supports all of this. However, the Minister specifically ordered the Dublin city electoral area boundary committee to respect point No. 3 of the terms of reference. Point No. 3 states that in recommending changes to local electoral areas, the committee should take due account of the desirability of preserving natural communities or the hinterlands of population centres and of the desirability, where it may be possible to do so, of aligning local electoral area boundaries with Dáil constituency boundaries. I contend that the latter part of that point has been observed, but the first part has been flagrantly ignored by the boundary committee.

The objective, as set out in the terms of reference, is to increase the number of public representatives in a particular ward area to no fewer than four and up to a maximum of seven. In exceptional circumstances, three-seat local electoral areas may be recommended where otherwise the geographical size of the electoral area would be disproportionately large. That is fair enough. The terms state that, subject to all this, the committee shall endeavour to maintain continuity in the arrangement of local electoral areas.

Flagrantly ignoring these terms of reference set out by the Minister for the committee will split a community that has been so cohesive into two areas. The community will be represented by four councillors on one side and six councillors on the other side of the boundary. That makes for ten councillors in total, with different area representation for council officials and so on. The contention has been made that this was for cynical electoral reasons for the Green Party. I do not put forward that argument, but I do feel that this will be very divisive for the community in Sandymount.

Terenure was divided into three areas, namely, Rathmines, Terenure-Rathfarnham and Tallaght Central. If the Minister read the submissions and looked at what the residents' associations were saying, he would know that this has been a very divisive experience for the Terenure area. I plead with him not to make the same mistake in the Sandymount area. The people who live there are the people who elected him. He would not be a Deputy, let alone a Minister, if it were not for the people of Sandymount. They have demonstrated on the streets about this and they have shown how badly this will affect them.

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