Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I am glad the Senator clarified that point because it is consistent with the approach his party adopted in the Dáil. The Government made the point, and the Senator's party accepted it, that it is no use establishing an independent review committee if we decide we do not like its recommendations and pick and mix from them.

I am pleased at the different level and tone of the debate in this House. Some appalling suggestions were made about the independent commission in the other House. We set up the commission comprising a small group of people who served the nation well in other fields, and gave it this task. It was not acceptable to hear people cast aspersions on the validity of this exercise.

This amendment looks ahead and therefore is not appropriate to this Act. The configuration of three, four and five-seat constituencies has applied in this country since 1947. The configuration and I arrived on this planet at approximately the same time. We could achieve absolute proportionality by creating a single constituency for the entire country.

There has always been a debate about the relationship between proportionality, which is desirable in democratic terms, and the unique relationship between the elected representative, particularly in the Dáil, and his or her constituents. Academics have treated this relationship in a disparaging way as gombeenism. I am an academic and therefore can be as critical of my own profession as anybody else. Academics who sit around all day after a nice long lunch in the common room can think up theses about the relationship between citizen and public representative but much of the academic analysis is bogus.

The relationship between the citizen and the public representative in Ireland is particularly important because it mediates between the citizen and the State. For all its warts I would defend our system against any other in Europe. In Sweden, for example, parliamentary representatives ask why I rush home for clinics at the weekend. I do so because I want to be re-elected and because it gives me a unique connection with every citizen in my constituency. Everyone in this House has done this too at some stage.

That is a very valuable feedback mechanism into Government. Public representatives do not have the market mechanism that Senator Quinn had in the pursuit of his career. If he made the wrong decision he would know because he would have no customers. One does not know when public administration does not make the right decision or makes the wrong one. The relationship between the citizen and the elected representative is part of a feedback mechanism into public administration. It is vital in terms of mediating an increasingly complex State and helping citizens deal with that.

If one destroyed that relationship, which could be an effect of having too large a constituency, one will have the problem of alienation and anomie. A six-seat constituency would have over 150,000 people spread over a large geographical area. That is not a good idea. A Sinn Féin amendment in the Dáil suggested we move to seven-seat constituencies — I am sure it was tabled in the interests of democracy rather than self-interest. If one goes there, one is talking about 170,000 electors or more, and we must therefore be very careful. We have a system that from time to time causes the types of difficulties that have arisen in Leitrim, and I understand those problems. However, the Senator's own party spokesman in the Dáil, Deputy O'Dowd, made an extremely interesting contribution about our current passion regarding constituency boundaries based on counties and the new realisation that Ireland is no longer mediated through arbitrary boundaries drawn up from the time of the Anglo-Norman conquest and concluded in 1604 when Wicklow was carved up.

There is a new relationship. For example, the Deputy made a point regarding Drogheda, whose people live in the city of Drogheda, in County Louth and in County Meath. Their focus is not the county but the city and we must therefore be very careful. I fully understand the passions that abound on this issue in Leitrim. I have spoken to people there, and they are worried that they will not have a resident Deputy. I told them they had a super Deputy in the shape of Deputy Ellis and that all they need do is vote for him to ensure he will be there again next time; I got the plug in.

My point is that we must be careful regarding the extraordinary and uniquely Irish relationship between the citizen and the elected representative. It is easier to see the Taoiseach of this country than a planning officer in one's county council. Most people will accept that as reality.