Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

It is important to debate all these issues, because we are certainly getting views from different representatives. I do not agree with everything Senator Hannigan has said, and I suspect he represents essentially a largely urban area. It is quite logical to understand that in places like Dublin and large urban centres, there are huge population densities, which is stated in the commission's terms of reference. However, there are large swathes of rural areas in the regions. The population may not be as dense, but all of those individuals are entitled to representation. The fact they are living in a sparsely populated area does not mean they should have less representation.

Some speakers mentioned the conundrum between geography versus density. I appreciate it is hard to square that circle, but there should be some weighting system to allow for large geographical areas with lower population densities, as there are still infrastructural needs for those rural areas. There are also issues regarding rural areas that affect our national performance, such as our water quality. As water is predominantly sourced from rural areas, there are protection issues involved. There are also issues about how we get funding from the Government to install the necessary systems, be it waste water treatment plants and so on.

We are going away from the debate to some extent, but it is all related to how areas are represented. The more power representation provides, the more resources will be provided for a constituency or region. There is a big debate on regional development versus central Government, but there is another debate on representation and the density of population versus rural areas. It is not good enough to state there is one councillor representing 6,000 people. That same councillor down the country could be representing 600 people, but his workload could be every bit as onerous as the councillor representing 6,000 people, because those 6,000 people can be well catered for with infrastructure and facilities. A councillor in a rural area could be out there fighting day and night for that infrastructure, even if it is for a smaller population.

It is not necessarily all one way, and I am looking at this as a regional representative. Knowing that the regions have large deficits in infrastructure, we need proper representation. There are 18 TDs in the south-east region, versus 47 TDs for the greater Dublin region. There is an imbalance there in my view.