Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

As I said on Second Stage, I sympathise with Senator Ellis and the people of Leitrim. In the Irish psyche there is a huge affinity with county boundaries. People in a county who do not have a public representative from within the county to represent them at a forum consider themselves at a disadvantage and disenfranchised. If any other county did not have a public representative in the Dáil, its people would feel the same as Senator Ellis and the people of Leitrim.

However, Fine Gael respects the independence of the commission. It is an independent commission that was set up to analyse the census of population and the demographics of this country and to recommend, independently and outside the political institutions, how the constituencies should be constituted. How seriously did the commission take the submissions made to it? That is the key issue. Time, money and effort went into making submissions to the commission. How seriously did it analyse those submissions? Did it make any responses that are available to the public? Can one view them? This is an important point. There must be an understanding of the reasons for making such decisions.

My constituency is Waterford. The north of County Waterford on the Clonmel side of south Tipperary has been lopped off into the constituency of Tipperary South. I represented that area on the county council. The people there feel disenfranchised and that, in a way, they fall between two stools. They vote in the Tipperary South constituency in a general election but in a local election they vote in the Waterford local electoral areas. They feel they fall between the two and are not taken seriously. Regardless of how strongly their public representatives seek to reassure them, they do not consider it right. From that point of view, I sympathise with the points made by Senator Ellis.

I draw the Minister's attention to page 40, the Schedule referred to in section 4. I seek clarification of the reference to Waterford in line 30. It states: "The county of Waterford, except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Tipperary South; and the city of Waterford". Perhaps the Minister would clarify why it states "except . . . and the city of Waterford". My understanding is that the constituency consists of the county of Waterford and Waterford city, except the part in Tipperary South. I suspect there might be a mistake in the provision. If not, I am happy to be corrected.