Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Electoral (Amendment) Bill. I will begin by discussing two of the changes proposed. The implementation of a six-month deadline for by-elections is to be welcomed, as it will mean there will be no repeat of the events of the last Dáil when we had to wait for over 18 months for by-elections to be held. Imposing such a deadline will take the decision away from the Dáil and ensure by-elections will take place within the allocated time.

Like other speakers, I welcome the reduction in spending limits for Presidential elections. However, I question the reason for having a figure of €750,000 and ask whether it could be reduced further to bring reality to a Presidential election campaign.

I wish to focus on the proposed change to the number of Deputies to be elected to the Dáil. The Bill was published on 30 June, but when the Central Statistics Office published preliminary census figures, we discovered that some of the provisions of the Bill concerning a reduction in the number of Deputies to 152 would be unconstitutional. If the Minister had waited a week, he would not have had to bring forward an amendment to bring the Bill into line with the Constitution. The proposed reduction in the number of Deputies is window dressing, much like the changes made to the numbers of committees in the Houses, as the Government wanted to portray an image of reform in politics. There are now committees covering two or three Departments, which committees will have such a workload they will not be able to hold these Departments to account. This was done in order that the Government would be able to state it had reduced the number of committees; the Bill has been introduced purely because it wants to state it will reduce the number of Deputies in the Dáil, it is not about making our democracy more efficient.

The Minister spoke about having one representative for just over 20,000 people. He conveniently included Seanad representatives in these figures in order to reduce the ratio and compared Ireland to countries such as New Zealand with unicameral systems where the figures are significantly higher. I commend the Library and Research Service for its Bills digest on the legislation and the Minister would do well to read it and consider the figures for representation in our European neighbours. In Austria there are 45,000 people for each Member of Parliament; in Denmark there are 30,000 people; in Finland, 26,500 people; in Hungary, 25,900 people, and in Sweden 26,300 people. These countries have similar populations to ours; therefore, the number of citizens for each Deputy is not out of line with that in our European neighbours and does not need to be changed significantly. If we were to reduce the number of Deputies to 153, there would be one Deputy for each 29,500 people. If the population was to increase by 4% in the next census, we would have to increase the number of Deputies again. The Bill is only window dressing and we require real political reform. We should examine our political structures. The people want to see the Dáil working on their behalf, not just a reduction in the number of Deputies.

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