Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I am in favour of extending it to general elections.

Proportionality is an important part of the remit of a future electoral commission. The Constitution says Dáil constituencies should have between three and seven seats. We have no seven seat constituencies, but have five seaters at most. Senator Doherty mentioned this in his contribution and might be interested that in the early years of the Free State a constituency in Donegal returned nine members. He would be satisfied if such a state of affairs returned. Senator Ellis mentioned the anomalous situation in County Leitrim, which does not have a large enough population to return a Dáil Deputy. Alone it would return one and a bit but that does not fall within the Constitution's requirement of having at least three Members. There is an argument for examining the Constitution in terms of country boundaries not being breached but it is a wider debate.

There is an argument in the contributions of Senators Ellis, Burke and Doherty for the need to get a proper balance between rural and urban representation. The demographics of this country are heavily weighted towards the east coast. The population in the greater Dublin area, despite its size, is out of kilter with the rest of the country. We should ask whether population ratio alone is the best determinant of parliamentary representation. It is worth debating whether geographical representation and different sectors of society should be taken into account. If today's debate has facilitated those ideas being aired, I am grateful to the Members for taking that opportunity.

The real benefit of an electoral commission is to address the issues of voter awareness and participation, however that is done. The value of tonight's debate should be to establish new structures that will help future generations of voters and citizens to have confidence in the political system and I thank the Senators for their contributions.