Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

This Bill is short and proposes to implement the recommendations of the 2003 constituency commission report on changes to the European Parliament constituencies and to give effect to the European Union Council decision of 25 June and 23 September 2002 concerning the election of Members of the European Parliament. I appreciate the House agreeing to discuss the Bill today and hopefully next week as it is necessary for it to be enacted as early as possible for this country to adopt the EU decision. There is an EU legal requirement for its adoption two months before the effective date for enlargement of the Community on 1 May 2004. There is also a need to give legal certainty to the European Parliament constituencies before candidates and political parties commence serious campaigning for the June polls.

The Bill has six sections. Section 1 defines the European Parliament Elections Act 1997 to which I shall refer as the 1997 Act. Sections 2, 3 and 5 amend the 1997 Act to implement certain provisions of the European Council decision of 25 June and 23 September 2002. The 2002 Council decision updated a 1976 Act of the European Community concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage.

Most of the changes made in the Council decision are textual and are already provided for in Irish legislation. The four changes requiring transposition into Irish law are the specification of new categories of office holders who are not eligible for election to the European Parliament, namely, a member of the board of directors of the European Central Bank, the Ombudsman of the European Communities, a member of the court of first instance or an official of the European Central Bank, and the ending of a dual mandate for a person who is a member of either House of the Oireachtas and the European Parliament.

The Council decision provides for a derogation for a Member of the Houses of the Oireachtas, who is elected to the European Parliament in June 2004, until the next general election to the Houses of the Oireachtas, when he or she will no longer be permitted to hold the two offices; a requirement that the results of the European elections may not be announced officially until the close of polling in the member state whose electors are the last to vote; and any reference in the 1997 Act and in other domestic legislation to a representative in the European Parliament should be construed as a reference to a member of the European Parliament.

I would like to briefly set out the background to the European Union Council decision of June and September 2002. The European Treaty provided for a uniform electoral procedure to the European Parliament from the first direct elections in 1979. While the Parliament actively sought the introduction of such a procedure, unanimity was never forthcoming at Council level, mainly because of one member state's desire to maintain its first-past-the-post electoral system. Two developments in 1998 gave renewed impetus to harmonising the electoral procedure for European elections. First, the Amsterdam treaty relaxed the strict uniformity requirement — Article 138(3) of the treaty reads as follows:

The European Parliament shall draw up a proposal for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure in all Member States or in accordance with principles common to all Member States.

Second, the UK legislation was amended to provide for a non-preferential PR-list system for European elections. Some form of a list system of proportional representation was used throughout the European Union in the 1999 European elections, except for Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The Amsterdam treaty also authorised the European Parliament to draw up a proposal for a common procedure or common principles for European elections to supersede the 1976 Council Act on Direct Elections. In anticipation of the coming into force of the Amsterdam treaty, the European Parliament in July 1998 passed a resolution incorporating a draft act to implement the revised Article 138(3). The draft act was discussed from 1998 to 2002 in the General Affairs Council of Ministers. There were some contentious points in the draft act such as a proposal that a list system of proportional representation must be used. There was no problem with specifying PR in the act as it is a "principle common to all member states". However, there was a difficulty with the article specifying that a list system of PR be used. The Irish PR-STV system is not a list system within the normal continental meaning of the expression so we secured a change to this article to accommodate our electoral system. It was agreed to refer in the article to "list system or PR-STV system". This text provides for retention of our current electoral system, while allowing for an alternative, if such is decided in the future.

It was also proposed that the office of MEP shall be incompatible with the office of member of a national parliament. This proposal represented a complete change in policy as a dual mandate had previously been specifically provided for. In this regard the explanatory statement which accompanied the European Parliament's report of 2 June 1998 stated:

However, the development of Parliament's powers and responsibilities makes it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for the Members to hold some other Office at the same time. In these circumstances, given the way in which the European Parliament's powers have evolved since 1976, it would now be appropriate to make the Office of MEP incompatible with that of Member of a national parliament.

Article 5 of the Council Act of 1976 permitted members of the European Parliament who are members of a national parliament to exercise a dual mandate.

While 13 of the 15 Irish MEPs elected in 1979 exercised a dual mandate, only four of the 15 MEPs elected in 1994 had dual membership. Following the 1997 general election, no Irish MEP had a dual mandate. While two dual mandated MEPs were elected in Ireland in 1999, no Irish MEP currently holds a dual mandate.

In recent years, there has been a tendency for members of the Irish Parliament elected to the European Parliament to opt for one or other mandate at the subsequent general election. There has also been a progressive reduction in the number of national representatives exercising the dual mandate. In practice, therefore, the exercise of the dual mandate in Ireland has become limited in time and in number.

The previous Government negotiated a limited derogation to the elimination of the dual mandate. The Government has now decided that the limited derogation will apply on a once-off basis at the June 2004 elections. The ban on the dual mandate will fully apply from the next general election.

Following the publication of the 2002 census of population figures in July 2002, a constituency commission was established under Part II of the Electoral Act 1997 to make a report on the constituencies for the election of members to the Dáil and to the European Parliament. To facilitate the holding of the European elections next June, the commission dealt with European elections first and submitted its report on the European constituencies last October. As Members are aware, the commission furnished its report on Dáil constituencies recently and the consequential legislation will be before the House for debate later this year.

Three commissions have dealt with European constituencies in reports published in 1977, 1993 and 1998 respectively. The 1977 commission recommended that Ireland's representation of 15 MEPs be distributed as follows: Connacht-Ulster — three seats; Dublin — four seats; Leinster — three seats and Munster — five seats. The 1993 commission recommended the transfer of a seat from Munster to the Leinster constituency, while the 1998 commission in its report did not recommend any change in the formation of the four constituencies or in the number of members to be elected in them.

There has, therefore, been no change in the constituencies or the number of members elected from them since the European Parliament elections in 1994. However, the Protocol on the Enlargement of the European Union and the Declaration on the Enlargement of the European Union in the Treaty of Nice provide that, in a European Union of 27 member states, Ireland will elect 12 MEPs. The protocol made provision for the possibility that there might be fewer than 27 member states in the European Union in 2004 and allowed for a pro rata distribution of unallocated seats. As neither Bulgaria nor Romania will accede to the European Union in time for the 2004 European Parliament elections, it was decided to allocate their seats to the current member states and those candidate states that will accede in May 2004.

The European Council in Copenhagen in December 2002 confirmed that Ireland will elect 13 MEPs in the 2004 European Parliament elections. The formal legal basis for this level of representation is the Accession Treaty signed on 16 April 2003. Ireland's representation in the European Parliament will be, therefore, reduced from its present level of 15 seats to 13 seats at the forthcoming elections.

Apart from the limitation to 13 seats thecommission's terms of reference for theEuropean constituencies were as follows: there shall be reasonable equality of representation as between constituencies; each constituency shall return three, four or five members; the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable; each constituency shall be composed of contiguous areas; there shall be regard to geographic considerations including significant physical features and the extent of and the density of population in each constituency; and subject to the above provisions, the commission shall endeavour to maintain continuity in relation to the arrangement of constituencies. The commission's role is advisory. The final determination of the constituencies for the European Parliament is a matter for the Oireachtas to prescribe in legislation. The Government accepted the commission's recommendations on the European Parliament constituencies.

Section 4 implements the recommendations of the constituency commission in relation to the European Parliament constituencies. The changes involve the reduction of two in Irish representation from the 2004 elections — a reduction of one seat in each of the Leinster and Munster constituencies. County Clare is transferred from the Munster constituency to the Connacht-Ulster constituency. No changes are made in the formation or number of Members to be elected in the Dublin constituency. The names of the three other constituencies are changed to East, North-West and South.

Elections in Ireland to the European Parliament are governed by the European Parliament Elections Acts 1992 to 2002, which provide for elections on the single transferable vote system in multi-Member constituencies. The provision concerning the revision of constituencies is set out in section 15(2) of the European Parliament Elections Act 1997, which states:

The Minister shall, having considered any report presented on statutory authority to each House of the Oireachtas recommending any alteration in the constituencies for which candidates shall be elected to the Parliament, and not later than the first day of December 2003 and at least once in every ten years thereafter, submit to the Oireachtas proposals for a review of the said constituencies.

Even if there is no major change in population before the 2009 elections, the European constituencies will require revision if Romania and Bulgaria join the European Union. In such circumstances, Irish representation will be reduced to 12 Members.

Section 6 of the Bill is a standard provision setting out the Short Title, collective citation and constitution of the Bill. I commend the Bill to the House.