Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I welcome this Bill in the very narrow sense that it is good as far as it goes but it does not go far enough. I question one aspect of it which everyone accepts so readily, that is, the setting up of the electoral commission. I noted what Deputy Browne said that all the great and the good are put onto this commission, including the Ombudsman, a High Court judge, the Clerks of the Dáil and of the Seanad and others. He asked why in the name of God an ordinary person, whatever that is, is not put onto it. I agree with him but it be should be more than one person. Perhaps the Minister will respond to this. Why do we not have a majority of citizens decide on what the electoral boundaries will be? Why do we not have a majority of six or seven citizens on the commission who would outnumber those who know more about the nuts and bolts?

It is not very fashionable to say this but High Court judges who are put in charge of sensitive areas of this sort are not immune from political pressures and there is no point pretending they are. Just because someone is a High Court judge does not mean he or she is politically untouchable. There is a great temptation for all Governments, in particular the last one, to say they are appointing a High Court judge to the chair and, therefore, it is all right.

Everyone knows High Court judges, in particular, are politically appointed and they are also subject to political pressure because if they want to go on to the Supreme Court, that promotion is politically controlled also. I am not saying any abuse is intended in this Bill, but it must be acknowledged that law of this sort is made for bad Governments and not for good ones. It is made in order that it passes the test of time and cannot be abused.

I do not accept that this commission or its membership should be set in stone. The same should be said of clerks, civil servants and the secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, a very sensitive position which should be pointed out also as being subject to political pressure, and the Ombudsman. I believe all Ombudsmen serve at least one term.

It would be open to any government to apply pressure, whether for reappointment or otherwise, on people on this commission. Everyone in this House knows there is constantly talk of appointing tame judges and tame people to commissions of this sort who will come out with the right result which will give advantages to the government in power. Time and again, commissions have been set up and the results of those commissions have been questionable because of the political input into them. That is the reality and not something that is said.

The Minister should consider at the very least widening the basis of this commission by putting people onto it who do not have a vested interest, who are paid by the State, who cannot have pressure put on them by the political party in power and who are not identifiable, as judges so often are, as being attached or having loyalties to the political party in power.

This is a tidying up Bill and, as such, it should be welcomed. It attacks three principal aspects of our electoral law. Does the Government intend it to be the forerunner of many Bills to come to tackle the electoral law? I have a different view from my colleagues on some of these issues. I do not particularly like the idea of multi-seat constituencies. It is one of the few things that is not in the programme for Government and which the Government has not put into effect and on which it should be congratulated. The idea of multi-seat constituencies - a six or a seven-seat constituency - will only multiply the difficulty we have where people pay more attention to work in the constituencies than they do to work in this House. I agree the two should be balanced but the balance currently is very obviously in favour of doing all the work in the constituencies, which undermines the work of this House. To some extent, if we start to go down the road of having even more seats in the constituencies, we will tilt the balance even further in that direction.

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