Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

——to arrange and rearrange constituencies. What was right in 1977 may not be right today.

The Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government would surely be an ideal vehicle to discuss these issues. Issues could be debated and suggestions could be made in both Houses, yet an independent commission is given full power. The politicians' input is basically zero and our attempt to redress any difficulties caused is in vain.

I support what has been said about the changes. The terms of reference concerning county and provincial boundaries and contiguous areas have been breached left, right and centre. Nobody, no matter how hard he or she tried, could justify the decision on Kerry and Limerick. There is absolutely no justification for including part of what was Limerick West with Kerry North. Nobody could justify what was done in respect of Laois-Offaly and Tipperary North. One could perhaps make a mathematical argument for it but one must bear in mind that certain alignments and arrangements date back almost to the foundation of the State. Those who may not be particularly interested in party politics or any sort of politics knew what constituency they were in, be it Carlow-Kilkenny or Laois-Offaly.

We have now decided to create Kerry North-West Limerick and call the remaining portion of County Limerick "Limerick" while taking a seat from the constituency to be called Limerick City. In addition, there are to be new configurations called Sligo-North Leitrim and Roscommon-South Leitrim. Difficulties arise in respect of Louth and Meath. Perhaps the commission fulfilled the legal requirement according to its terms of reference but it breached the spirit of them. The changes made in Cork will affect me. Part of the traditional constituency of Cork East has been removed and a large proportion of the population has been transferred to a constituency that is based on the city of Cork located 25 miles away. It is absolutely daft that people in the city of Cork are now in the same constituency as people almost on the border of County Kerry. There is no geographical, socio-economic or political sense to it. I accept there will be winners and losers and we cannot do anything about that, but if the constituencies were being drawn up from a common sense perspective then at least seven or eight of the new arrangements would be discarded.

It would be both interesting and important to hear about the thinking that led to the decision-making process. We can obtain the documentation on the thinking that leads to major Government decisions at budget time. In a few months or a few years we can read the documentation leading to the recent Government decisions on banking. For better or worse it is appropriate that we would be in a position to obtain and reflect on all of that documentation, yet we are not told about the thinking behind the creation of some of the new constituencies, the dissection of other constituencies and the political decimation of County Leitrim. That is disappointing.

If democracy is sacrosanct we need to have constituencies that are fair and balanced and give every area of the country an opportunity to be represented. Perhaps we are straying slightly beyond the section but when the Minister referred to geographical and population constraints I was reminded of a point of political argument that is made regularly in the House by a person who is not a member of any political party, namely, Senator O'Toole. He may have spoken on Second Stage. On many occasions he has reflected on the fact that the western seaboard and the most rural constituencies are losing representation under the current rules and regulations. He has frequently and effectively made the point made by Senator Ellis that rural representation may have to be bigger in terms of numbers per head of population than urban representation to ensure geographical balance and to give due recognition to the fact that rural representatives have to travel long distances. We should not ignore those considerations in any future deliberations.

I speak with a sense of a slight personal disappointment about what is happening in regard to County Cork, but I have no personal reason for my disappointment with the other constituencies, which concern me purely from the perspective of their construction. There is no justification for changes made in Kerry, Limerick, Offaly, north Tipperary, parts of Connacht, Louth and Meath.

I look forward to clarification from the Minister on when the next opportunity for constituency boundary revision will come. Reference was made to the notion that provisional census figures will be available, but does that mean they will be used? Will there be an option to set up a new commission once provisional census figures are available or is the Minister mandated to do so? I hope we will have a commission that will work in a more transparent fashion and that will take on board advice from the various Oireachtas committees and the Houses because the current system may well have outlived its usefulness. It probably sounded like a great idea in the autumn of 1978, 12 months after another constituency gerrymander went wrong, but what was right in 1978 may no longer be useful in 2009. I hope the Minister is willing to bring about changes that are more appropriate to today's needs.