Síle de Valera (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I apologise on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, who regrets he cannot be here for this debate but he has asked me to make the following remarks on his behalf.

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. It is important to point out that unlike the situation regarding Dáil constituencies, there are no constitutional or statutory requirements regarding the frequency of local electoral area reviews. The most recent reviews took place in 1998 and were carried out by two independent ad hoc committees, one for the Dublin local authorities and another dealing with the rest of the country. Prior to the 1998 reviews, a review of local electoral areas was carried out in 1985; in other words, there was a gap of 13 years between the previous reviews. The reports and recommendations of both of the 1998 committees were accepted in full by the Government and were implemented and in force at the June 1999 and 2004 local elections.

Certain provisions of the Local Government Act 2001, due to be commenced later this year, will provide, inter alia, for the establishment of a local government commission which will be independent in the performance of its functions. The 2001 Act provides that the Minister may, by order, divide local authorities into local electoral areas and fix the number of members to be elected for each electoral area, but this may only be done following a report by the local government commission on the matter. In requesting the commission to prepare a report, the Minister may provide terms of reference and is required to publish the commission's report and to have regard to it in deciding whether to make an order revising the electoral areas concerned. Reasons must be given for any material variation from the recommendations made by the commission. While there are no constitutional or statutory requirements for any specified level of equality of representation among local electoral areas within a local authority, it has been accepted that there should be reasonable equality of representation. The 1998 committees both adopted as a general target that variations within authorities should be limited to between plus and minus 10%.

A further element of the Act to be brought into operation later this year relates to the alteration of local authority boundaries. In this regard, the commission may also make recommendations on foot of applications made by local authorities or if requested by the Minister. It is open to any local authority, under existing law and as a reserved function, to initiate an application for a boundary alteration. A number of such applications have been determined in recent years, two as recently as January this year. Any consequential adjustments of local electoral areas are also implemented in the context of such boundary alterations.