Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators for their contributions. First, I want to empathise with what Senator Glynn stated about parish boundaries and, indeed, county boundaries. He gave a good example in the case of the GAA and the pride of the parish. Indeed, that issue of the great empathy there is with parishes and with counties comes up quite a good deal in elections, whether in general elections or local elections.

On the issue Senator Coffey raised where he spoke of the way Waterford is described in the Bill, I understand these are two administrative areas, the county of Waterford and the city of Waterford. I would liken it to the description of Galway West, which the Bill refers to as "The county of Galway, except the part which is in Galway East; and the city of Galway". There is a borough in Galway and in Waterford, and two administrative areas in each of those counties.

He asked how serious were the submissions treated by the commission. Obviously, we all have different views on that. I and the Minister hope that, as the Senator stated, as it is an independent commission all submissions made would be treated seriously. As I stated, there is more consultation provided for in the Bill and I hope that will be welcomed by all sides of the House.

On Senator Wilson's point, I understand the Minister has no more information other than what is in the report. For that reason, the Minister is not disposed to accepting amendments to the Bill which would alter the scheme of the constituencies recommended by the commission.

The Minister's reasons are well known. He spoke about establishing a commission to advise on constituency revision and the implication that these recommendations would be implemented in full. In addition, to reject some of the commission's recommendations would be to revert to the partisan approach of the past, of which Senator Glynn spoke, when constituency revisions were perceived as framed to secure political advantage for the Government of the day. Also, if the Minister were to comment on particular commission recommendations, he feels it would undermine the independence of a statutory commission which has carried out its task in compliance with all the relevant constitutional and legal requirements.

The Government's view is that the commission's recommendations are a package which must be accepted or rejected in its entirety and the Government has decided to follow the established practice of implementing in full the recommendations of the independent commission.