Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----to make space for other people? I hope they will not try to hold on to the seats. There are a lot of big questions in this regard.

The question of the principle of equal treatment was brought up by the previous speakers. If the two people who do not take their seats are those elected to the two extra seats, which would be one person in the Dublin constituency and one in the South constituency, then the people of those constituencies will not receive equal treatment and will not have equal representation. The boundaries will have been extended and the Minister of State has said that the constituencies will be fairly well proportioned. Those constituencies will have elected four or five people, based on their population, but will not be represented by that number of people. There is a question of equal representation in that which has to be raised in the context of this debate. I would be interested in the Minister of State's views on that.

I do not have too much to say about the Sinn Féin proposal on Northern Ireland. I do not have any legal opinion or advice on it, though everyone in the room apart from me seems to. As I see it, it is too late for this to be a practical proposition. If there is an extension of Article 50 and if the seats were to be given to Northern Ireland, would the people of the North also be able to vote for British representatives? I presume it would be done on a geographical basis, so everybody in Northern Ireland would be able to vote. Again, there are serious questions around that. Could an Irish citizen living in a different part of Britain vote for those two seats, because such a person would also have been disenfranchised? There are big questions. If it is a serious proposal and if it is being given serious consideration - and I do not think it is, because time has run out - these questions have to be raised. It is easier to give votes to the diaspora for the presidency because people would be voting on the basis of one geographical entity, the Republic of Ireland, no matter where they live. That is much easier. Northern Ireland is a separate geographic entity which would have its own seats. That poses difficulties.

I refer to the amendments to rules 5 and 50 of the Second Schedule to the European Parliament Election Act 1997, which will allow candidates standing for election to the European Parliament the option to include on the ballot paper the name of any European political party to which their national political party may be affiliated. I welcome that. We pay far too little attention in Ireland to the political groupings to which our European parliamentarians belong. These groupings have a significant influence on how they vote and on how they participate in the Parliament. My party is affiliated to the Party of European Socialists. We are very proud of that and, although I have not consulted with my party or the candidates, I assume we will be very happy to put that on the ballot paper. I hope that other political parties that belong to a group will not be shy about declaring the group to which they belong when their candidates are going for election. That is a positive. It has not got very much public attention. There are some other technical provisions, which relate to more time and so on, which seem to be relatively positive.

That is about all I have to say. The most difficult issues are around what will happen if Brexit does not go ahead. Obviously, that would be a good thing in lots of ways but if the British look for an extension of article 50 and then go anyway after a couple of years, it would pose very serious questions. I am not sure the Minister of State is in a position to answer them all but we would welcome clarity insofar as he can provide it. I hope the public will engage in the forthcoming European elections in a very positive way. In some places we will be voting on four or five different things. We will be voting on a plebiscite, local elections, European elections and possibly referendums. I hope the European elections will get the attention they need from the public. It is up to us as public representatives to ensure there is the kind of debate on the issues that are really going to be very significant for us now as we face Brexit. Our European parliamentarians are going to be really important in terms of how the represent our country and political parties in the European Parliament. I look forward to whatever clarification the Minister of State can give us in his reply.

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