Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

The section as amended by the Minister allows the commission a range of between 153 and 160 Deputies. Obviously the Minister originally intended the minimum number to be 153, which would have clearly been unconstitutional according to the preliminary census results as it would have meant that there would have been less than one Deputy for every 30,000 people. However, the new figure of 153 comes very close to that constitutional limit as I pointed out in my Second Stage contribution. It would only take a population increase of 8,731 or more and the new range the Minister has defined would become unconstitutional. In 2006 the preliminary census results were incorrect by just under 5,000. It is quite feasible that the preliminary census results could be out by even more; they could be out by up to 10,000 this time.

A recent newspaper report indicated that the census office is still receiving a number of unreturned census forms. I know it has estimated the number of people who would be accounted for by those unreturned census forms, but that is just an estimate. The census enumerator who came to my door did not go through how many people were in my house. So I would be concerned over the reliability of those estimates. The precedent exists: in 2006 the preliminary census results were inaccurate by almost 5,000. If there is an underestimate of 8,731 or more when we get the final census results, the Bill will have been passed and have become an Act, and the commission will have been given its terms of reference. Midstream in its work, the terms of reference it will have been given will be unconstitutional and the Minister will probably need to introduce amending legislation.

There is no point in the Minister shaking his head. If the final census results show that the preliminary results underestimated the population by 8,731 or more, the range the Minister has defined in the Bill will be unconstitutional and so will be the terms of reference for the constituency commission. I will be making all these points in my submission to that commission, but it is important to point it out here. The Minister should have set the minimum number at 155 at least. On Committee Stage the Minister said he had changed the lower figure from 152 to 153 because the number of members was not feasible. If that is the case and if there is an underestimate when we get the final census results, his new figure of 153 will not be feasible either.

On Committee Stage the Minister said: "I did not expect the population to have increased by 380,000. That was a surprise to everybody." If that is the case why did the Minister only adjust the lower figure in the range and why did he not increase the upper figure in the range? If the population has increased, surely the Minister wants the people to be properly represented. If he was going to increase the lower number, the logical thing to do would have been to also increase the upper figure - if the Minister is not just doing this for populist reasons, which is what I believe.

While I am not sure if it was raised elsewhere, on Second Stage I mentioned that political scientists highly regard a formula known as the cube root law of assembly sizes. The law basically states that the lower house in a legislature should have a number of members of parliament which is the cube root of that country's population. It just so happens that the cube root of Ireland's population according to the latest census results is exactly 166. If that formula is used countries such as Britain and France are overrepresented. The author of that formula stated that: "the cube root rule should prevail because it would maximize efficiency and reduce the influence of non-elected congressional staffs". He was talking about the US Congress. Obviously the same thing applies here. He makes the point that if a parliament has too few representatives, as the population grows, there is a growth in the number of non-elected officials in political parties and all the support staff. That has been happening in Ireland. We have the same number of Deputies as we had when there were 1.2 million fewer in the population. While we have kept the same number of Deputies, there has been a twentyfold increase in the number of unelected employees associated with parliamentary duties. By reducing the number of Deputies at a time when our population is increasing, as it will continue to do, it will reduce the influence of the elected people in favour of unelected advisers, PAs etc.

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