Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

Coming from my constituency, I thought the Acting Chairman would not be as hard on me. Obviously, what Deputy Ross said about working in the constituency does not always work.

I welcome this Bill, but I am concerned that many of the promises made about real political reform have been abandoned. The measures in the Bill only tinker with the notion of political reform, although I welcome them. Section 3 relates to the number of Deputies. This is a red herring because people need better representation and more democracy. As was said by previous speakers, we need change at local authority level and to give it back some powers instead of stripping it of powers which has been done by successive Ministers and Governments.

I welcome the six-month provision in respect of by-elections, but why is there a need for by-elections? Why could we not go back to the returning officer and ask him or her for the name of the defeated candidate with the highest number of votes from whatever party or persuasion and allow him or her to take over without a by-election? That is democracy in action because he or she would have received the next highest number of votes. We could do a lot more work in the constituency rather than travelling to wherever the by-election is taking place, knocking on doors and pestering people. It was an outrage that the last Government did not hold the by-elections for so long. The Acting Chairman and I know that we were pretty busy in south Tipperary-west Waterford looking after Waterford because it was without one Deputy for so long after the former Minister, Martin Cullen, retired.

I also welcome the lowering of spending limits in Presidential elections. Fine Gael has assembled a war chest to go after the most prestigious job which has eluded it for so long. It has many potential candidates. However, this will come too late for that, but I agree with curtailing the spending.

In recent months the Technical group has been blackguarded. There was talk of fair play and so on but it did not happen. We have no representative on the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission nor does Sinn Féin. We did not receive fair play in respect of the Committee of Public Accounts and in many other areas. Light is being made of the leaders' allowance for Independents. Some of the parties are getting three times the allowance for Independents. Let us be fair and honest.

As Deputy Ross asked, why can ordinary people not be on the electoral commission? Why must it always be a commission of the high priests, such as a High Court judge, a Secretary General and so on? They do not understand life. The Judiciary needs to be reformed. One must be re-elected to this House but, once appointed, one is a judge for life. I know to my cost the situation where judges are politically appointed, politically motivated and politically selected for certain court cases. What has happened is an outrage and I could go back to the gerrymandering of the Tully regime in the 1970s and what happened.

This is neither open nor honest nor is it intended to be fair. It cannot be fair because certain political appointees must look after their masters. If they do not, they will not be appointed again and soft judges will be picked. A judge who supports a political party will be appointed.

I respect the role of the Judiciary and the fact it must be independent. However, these judges need refresher courses, as do these commissions. We have had a number of commissions and they cut County Leitrim in two as well as towns. There are rumours of amalgamating Tipperary South and Tipperary North but it is almost 110 miles from the County Waterford border to the County Galway border. Is that fair representation? I know there are large constituencies elsewhere, including in County Donegal.

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