Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I am making the point that the commission had little regard for ensuring that Leitrim should be one county for electoral purposes. I put forward my case on the basis of the information I have as a consequence of putting the same case on previous occasions. The redrawing of constituencies affects the livelihood and future policies of the State and the ability of a person to be elected to the Oireachtas. The commission should have some regard to the physical location of existing Deputies so they will at least not be disenfranchised to the extent that their home base is removed from them and they are unable even to vote for themselves. However, these considerations were clearly not of great concern to the commission.

I hope the commission will publish the submissions it received. My submission included several options including a restoration of the old Roscommon-East Galway constituency.