Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I appreciate that and thank the Minister of State for the help. Rather than criticise Louth, I merely want to identify the proper approach to take. More respect should have been paid to county boundaries. I have been told by people in Bettystown and Laytown they no longer intend to vote because they feel little allegiance to County Louth. Members of the Minister of State's party, including the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and Deputy Kirk are respected for the tremendous work they do on behalf of their constituents in Louth. That is demonstrated by the poll results they achieve at elections. I believe Deputy Kirk was elected on the first count at the last election. However, many people in the east Meath region are concerned about being represented by people from outside the constituency and would prefer to remain within Meath East. This report caused considerable consternation among local residents.

The entire issue of county boundaries is being thrown aside and replaced by a different rationale for grouping electoral areas. Areas of County Westmeath have been included in the three seat Meath West constituency. The Leader has raised concerns in that regard and I am sure people of that county would prefer to vote in the Westmeath constituency. In the north west of County Meath, Kells has previously been combined with Navan, Trim and Athboy but is now being wrenched out of Meath West and moved to Meath East. The constituencies of long-serving Deputies such as Deputy Johnny Brady are being torn apart. While many of his constituents will remain in the constituency of Meath West, others will be in the Meath East constituency. Five years ago, Kells was in the Meath constituency. Last year, it was in the Meath West constituency and it is now expected to move to the Meath East constituency.

People become familiar with their local representatives and with voting for them. Five years ago, the people of Kells were forced to choose a new representative to support. This changed again two years ago and they are now being asked to vote for a completely new set of representatives. Many people who supported the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, for years were forced to vote for a new representative in their area. There will be much confusion as a result of this. People are concerned about the transfer of towns and villages to different constituencies, in particular when there are other ways of achieving our goal, namely, ensuring representation is proportional to the population in an area.

Approximately 17,000 people are who were in the constituency of Meath East will now be in the Louth constituency, thus increasing the population of the Louth constituency to the extent that it will become a five-seater rather than four-seater constituency. Later, I hope to speak to an amendment I have tabled on constituency size. We would like larger constituencies as they are more democratic in that smaller parties are less well represented when constituencies are smaller in size. I have some interesting statistics for the House which I will go into in detail at a later stage if we get to my amendment. I will not deal at this stage with the issue of three-seater or four-seater constituencies.

As I stated, as a result of these changes the Meath East constituency will no longer include Laytown, Bettystown and an estate called Grange Rath, which comprises almost 1,000 houses, accommodating approximately 3,000 people. Many of these people, who recently moved to the area from Dublin and are only getting to know their local representatives, will be in a different constituency requiring them to find out once again who is representing them. In these challenging times, people need to know where to go with their complaints and from whom they can obtain information in regard to benefits and so on. People who have been living in this area for three years will know their public representatives. However, following enactment of this legislation they will contact the wrong public representatives. This will create confusion and will diminish people's trust in the electoral system.

Approximately 20,000 people from places such as Grange Rath, Laytown, Bettystown, Gormanstown and Julianstown in the Meath constituency will now be in the Louth constituency. The impact of this will be that the goals as set out in the advice given to the commission will be met in terms of overall numbers. While this addresses the variance of percentage of population to seats, it clearly does not, as other Senators stated, respect county boundaries. A person who resides eight miles from County Louth will be in the Louth constituency. One could argue, if one decided to ignore the issue of county delineation, that those people should be included in the Dublin North constituency. As Members will know, the Dublin North constituency has been revised. Many people who moved out from places such as Balbriggan to Laytown, which is only three or four miles away, knew five years ago who were their representatives. Many of their families remain living in Balbriggan and many of those people continue to work there. I do not understand why, when it came to determining what made sense in terms of to what constituencies particular towns and villages should be aligned, a place like Julianstown, which is nearer to Dublin North than Louth, was not included in the Dublin North constituency when reviewed and changed. People cannot make sense of what is being done.

For whatever reason, the commission has decided to put aside the issue of county boundaries. As long as we are not told how this came about and what is the rationale behind it, people will continue to ask questions. Last week Senator Ellis gave this thoughts on why the commission came back with these findings, not alone in regard to Meath but in regard to Limerick, Kerry North, Kerry South and other areas. Senator Ellis appears to have concerns about due process. I have no evidence to suggest anything untoward has taken place. However, many of the recommendations in this report are strange. I am at a loss to understand why the commission chose to go down this particular route. It is clear from the legislation that county boundaries were to be respected. However, this appears to have been left by the wayside. There is no justification for why the commission ignored that advice.

We need to see the relevant information. It is information the Minister could make available if he chose to do so. However, I could be wrong and would appreciate clarification on the matter from the Minister of State. I know Senator Ellis has tried to get this information under the Freedom of Information Act but has been unsuccessful in doing so. The Cathaoirleach will recall that only a few short months ago this House debated the issue of freedom of information — Senator Buttimer will recall that debate. Not enough is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. There appears to be too many exclusions, which is the reason we sought a debate on the issue.

I believe we need more information from the Minister if we are to go along with the passing of the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2008. We need to know why county boundaries have not been respected and what is the rationale for ignoring that advice.