Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Electoral Commission for the large body of work it needed to do. We support this legislation and the enactment of the constituency review report. Boundary reviews are looked at by politicians with particular interest. Moving from 160 Deputies to 174 would be a difficult sell to the public and would never sit too well on Twitter, but we have to work within the constitutional constraints.

I welcome a considerable amount of the work that has been done and that attempts have been made almost to rectify, as best as possible, the centrality of the county structure. Anyone who has operated as a councillor, Deputy or representative in any way, shape or form knows it makes life easy when there is a general crossover between the area he or she represents and the area administered by the relevant local authority. It can be difficult when people have to move from one to the other. In my county, Drogheda falls under this scenario. It is a town that has grown. As Deputy Munster would say, it is the largest town in Ireland and, as the Minister knows, there have been considerable calls to grant it city status. This is why there is still technically a breach in the county’s boundaries. As much as some areas are happy from a footballing point of view to be in County Meath, they would see Drogheda as their largest hub. It is always difficult to marry all of these considerations.

I have no difficulty with the variance being as much as -8.13% rather than the regular 5%. We need as much flexibility as possible if this is to work from an administrative and electoral point of view, but the State setting itself against six-seaters needs to be reconsidered. We all accept there has been a large growth in the population and, from a planning point of view, work needs to be done to provide the infrastructure to accommodate that growth. According to the most recent census, 5,149,139 was the count for this State. I would like to think that, at some point in the near future, we will be undertaking a boundary review that deals with 32 counties, but I will not jump the gun on that. I would like to think this State could undertake some planning in that regard to ensure we will be ready when that moment comes or when we near the point of holding a referendum.

On the question of six-seaters, we did not opt for Westminster’s first-past-the-post system because the idea here was to involve as many people as possible, not to disenfranchise voters.

The thrust needs to be from a proportional representation point of view and to ensure smaller parties and Independents can be represented. That adds to our democracy. Despite all the issues we have with democracy, I have not seen anyone put in place a better system to date. As much as we need to factor in limits or constraints owing to considerable population growth, and while this creates difficulties, it is obviously a positive, we need to factor in the best means of delivering the best kind of proportional representation, even if it means considering six-seaters. I would welcome that.

I have spoken about the fact that there has been an attempt not to breach county boundaries. I imagine that if you spoke to Deputies or citizens on the streets in Wicklow and Wexford, they would not be particularly enamoured with what has happened. I get that there will always be anomalies but I return to the point that, with a view to future-proofing, we have to consider having greater flexibility around seat numbers.

While we have some sort of decision made on where the extra European Parliament seat will go and while all welcome that, there will be a need to allow further consultation. It is absolutely necessary. I would find it difficult to make this speech without stating that the anomaly in the North regarding the democratic deficit, as it is often known, will need to be dealt with down the line. I have already said, and not for the first time, that there is one particular solution to anomalies like this: Irish unity. Again, the State has work to do on the planning scenario, whether that entails a citizens' assembly or another mechanism. At some level, the State, especially the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, has set itself against this. However, the onus is on the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to provide some sort of mechanism whereby the preparatory work and the general conversation will happen. I accept on one level that we all want to see an Executive up and running, and that has to have primacy. It is to be hoped we will see consultation on the European Parliament.

When making representations on behalf of constituents, it is much easier if dealing with one local authority and if the area you represent falls as close as possible within one single local authority area. There will always be anomalies and difficulties but a question arises in that we have had a problem concerning the centralising of power and control. I am not the first to say that this is the biggest county council in Ireland. What I describe is something we need to move away from. As much as we need to review boundaries in future local authority elections, although not the upcoming one, we need to consider the powers that exist. While we know about the huge rows between elected representatives and the executive, while I accept there will always be a need for a professional executive that can carry out operations, and while I understand there have been issues with the planning process in this State, the fact is we have hollowed out local government. That does not add to our democracy.

While the work of the Electoral Commission is very welcome, it is a genuine positive that we now have a rolling register. We had points during the year when nobody could apply, with every local authority probably operating its own bespoke solution. Applicants were just added on the day the electoral register opened again or put on the supplementary register if an election was called, with each local authority having its own rules and regulations regarding whether the supplementary register would become part of the long-term one. The rolling register makes absolute sense. The aim is to make registration as easy as possible. The website is www.checktheregister.ie. I have now heard a fair number of the advertisements. We know that people have to be told to register. It used to be said that people have to be told three times before they hear the message but I would imagine they have to be told five, six, seven or eight times before they do so. We know of the issues that exist regarding accommodation, and a large number of people may have moved. Therefore, work needs to be done by local authorities to ensure the register can be as good as possible.

A wider issue needs to be addressed regarding people being put on the register automatically. I get the issues regarding GDPR and all the rest of it but it cannot be beyond us to find some means of ensuring a register that is as good as it can be. I am not saying it can be perfect. We all know the issues that exist in that people have been taken off the register unknown to them, and there were electoral courts, etc., so we need to ensure a system that is robust and as automatic as possible. Until we have that, there will be considerable work. I accept it will be a lot easier to do this in urban settings, particularly as we get weather that is far from perfect, as we have all discovered in the past while. I hope this will not be a winter of more weather warnings.

If we are talking again about the powers of local authorities, we will need to consider how we deal with emergency circumstances. I am aware there are anomalies regarding flooding in that flooding is technically not considered an emergency. I am not entirely sure what the threshold is regarding a flooding incident such as that in my county, especially to the north, including the Cooley Peninsula and parts of Dundalk. It could have been a lot worse. Had there been one more day or night of rain, it would have been lights out for an awful lot of us. We need a better means of dealing with flooding in terms of command and control. We all accept the number working in local authorities is a factor. Maybe this will not change greatly. We need to assess the resources we need. My figures could be slightly wrong but I contend that while there are now 28 staff in Louth County Council, there were around 163 in the 1980s. We have to accept that if we cannot replicate that number and do not necessarily have the capacity we would like to deal with flooding emergencies, we need to know about the thresholds and who will be in command and control. We also need to ensure there are protocols for drawing in State agencies and services. I have already brought this up with the Department, and I will be over and back in this regard. A huge body of work needs to be done to repair roads and bridges that have been damaged, particularly in north County Louth.

I have spoken to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, and others and said that, as much as we have supports, we need something very specific for farmers. I was at a meeting with Councillor Antóin Watters yesterday regarding this. We need to see movement on this. In some cases, farmers are afraid of doing works because they do not know the detail of the scheme and if there is to be one.

The main thing stated by everybody, including homeowners and business owners, is that as much as they need supports to get back up and running, bearing in mind that some have dealt with absolute devastation, they need to make sure the mitigation measures are the best that can be. We accept that when there is unprecedented rain, it can never be dealt with completely, but we need an assessment carried out and the local authority to lead on it. We also need to make sure Irish Water, the OPW, Coillte and any other body required is part of the conversation. While accepting that we cannot deal with everything all at once, we need to deal with as much as possible.

I will make just one more point regarding this matter. I realise I have gone slightly off topic. I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan's party colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, regarding a drainage area plan. In respect of north Louth, he said Uisce Éireann, which has responsibility for this matter, came back to him and stated the plan is for Dundalk. There is a need for a piece of work to be done on this. It should have regard to where I live, namely, Bay Estate, the estates around and behind mine, such as Avenue Road, Greenwood Drive, Cluan Enda, Avondale and many other places that may not have experienced flooding at the level we experienced. Had there been one more night of rain, thousands of houses would have been flooded.

We seem to have a particular issue. Uisce Éireann needs to look at this drainage plan. We cannot deal with wastewater. It is a combined system dealing with sewage and also the likes of stormwaters. The line is full and therefore the estates have been flooding. As I say, with one more, the flooding would have gone through far more houses than it did. That particular issue needs to be dealt with.

Just because it has happened today, I have a particular issue for Uisce Éireann. We seem to have an issue with monitoring in the Dunbin reservoir. It looks like the pump kicked out. A generator had been put in place-----

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