Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

As someone who studied statistics in college, I would prefer to take the recent poll, roll it up into a ball and throw it into the nearest bin. As we all know, only one poll matters. One will not get any votes if one does not work hard, get out there and do one's job. While I appreciate Senator Coffey's good wishes, I assure him opinion polls do not excite me for one minute.

I would like to comment on the manner in which Deputies are elected from the smaller parties. Following the 2007 general election, Sinn Féin is represented in Dáil Éireann by four Deputies. Deputy Ó Snodaigh was elected in the five seat Dublin South-Central constituency. Deputy Ó Caoláin was elected in the five seat Cavan-Monaghan constituency which was reduced to four seats at the previous general election because the then Ceann Comhairle, Deputy O'Hanlon, was automatically re-elected to the Dáil. Deputy Morgan was elected in the four seat Louth constituency. The only Sinn Féin candidate to be elected in a three seat constituency was Deputy Ferris who replaced Dick Spring in the Kerry North constituency in 2002. Most of Sinn Féin's seats were won in five seat and four seat constituencies.

If the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, were here, I am sure he would agree that similar problems are encountered by the Green Party. He represents the four seat Dublin South-East constituency. His colleague, Deputy Cuffe, was elected in the five seat Dún Laoghaire constituency. Deputy White was elected in the five seat Carlow-Kilkenny constituency. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, comes from the five seat Dublin South constituency. The Minister of State, Deputy Sargent, was elected in the four seat Dublin North constituency. The only exception to the rule in the Green Party is Deputy Gogarty, who was first elected to the Dáil when his constituency, Dublin Mid-West, had just three seats. It has become a four seat constituency since then. Most Green Party Deputies are elected to represent five seat or four seat constituencies. Three of its six Deputies represent five seat constituencies and the other three represent smaller constituencies.

Most of the Deputies elected to represent my own party, the Labour Party, are elected in four seat or five seat constituencies. Our party leader, Deputy Gilmore, comes from the five seat Dún Laoghaire constituency. Deputy Ciarán Lynch represents the five seat Cork South-Central constituency. When Deputy Kathleen Lynch returned to the Dáil in 2002, she was one of five Deputies to be elected in Cork North-Central. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Deputy Howlin, represents the five seat Wexford constituency. Deputy O'Shea was elected in the four seat Waterford constituency. Deputy Penrose was elected in the four seat Longford-Westmeath constituency. Deputy Quinn represents the four seat Dublin South-East constituency. Deputy Upton was elected in the five seat Dublin South-Central constituency. Deputy Higgins was elected in the five seat Galway West constituency.

The manner in which proportional representation works means the Labour Party is more adequately represented than other parties. The party's number of Deputies is much more in keeping with the share of the vote it gets. That is not the case in three seat constituencies, however. If a Labour Party candidate gets 20% of the vote in a three seat constituency, he or she might not be elected to the Dáil. The fairness of this aspect of our system needs to be considered. I do not think it is fair.

I am glad the Minister has made changes to local electoral areas. Some electoral areas in County Meath now have seven seats. We have no complaints about that. The outcome of the local elections in such areas will reflect the share of the public vote achieved by small parties. We have no real complaints. We welcome the changes to local electoral seat arrangements. We do not accept that each of the three seat Dáil constituencies recommended by the constituency commission and provided for in this Bill is necessary. We suggest that a greater number of seats be provided for in a smaller number of constituencies to represent more adequately and fairly the demographics involved.

I will refer to the proposed constituency arrangements in the north east, for example. It is proposed that Meath West and Meath East will both have three seats, with Louth having five seats. The Louth recommendation has been put together by removing 17,000 people from the County Meath constituency and placing them in the Louth constituency. The reason they have been removed from the Meath East constituency is not clear. It would have been much more transparent if they had been retained in Meath East and an extra seat given to Meath East. In that way there would be three in Meath West, four in Louth and four in Meath East. Not only would that have been more transparent, it would have gone along with the recommendations given to the constituency commission that county boundaries should be respected. The position now is that there are more three seaters than may be necessary. That is, first, less representative of the way people vote and, second, county boundaries are being split. The problem is that there appears to be no rationale for that being done.

Senator Ellis referred last week to the transparency of the entire process, and people ask questions. If people do not understand the rationale they ask questions. They ask whether somebody has been got to, so to speak. They want to know the reason this is being done. Is it to suit somebody or to nobble somebody else? We are unclear about it because no rationale has been published. Despite requests from Senators for information to be released, the freedom of information rule does not appear to apply in this case. I am led to believe the Minister could make these papers available quite easily and if he did so it might clear up some of these issues.

Our amendment is seeking better representation for people. We want the result of any election to be more reflective of the way people vote and we believe the best way of doing that is by minimising the number of three seat constituencies, except in exceptional circumstances. I will not try to define what is an exceptional circumstance. The term "exceptional circumstances" defines itself. From what we have seen in the proposals contained in this legislation, no exceptional circumstances have been outlined as to the reason this should be the case.

I will give an example of what could be defined as an exceptional circumstance. If there were 65,000 people living on one of the Aran Islands, it might be decided to keep that as a three seater because it might not make sense to move them to another constituency. It might make more sense to give them their own identity. Identity, therefore, could be an issue that would define exceptional circumstances. If people spoke a different language than those in the remainder of the constituency or if a Gaeltacht area had a sufficient number of people for a three seater constituency, that might be an exceptional circumstance.

There is nothing exceptional in the proposals before the House. If anything, the opposite is the case. We are taking people out of the Meath constituency whose families have lived there for generations. They are used to voting for Meath TDs and going to see Meath play at football matches. A total of 18,000 of them are being taken out of that constituency and put into a different county. There is no sense to that and we have seen no rationale for the Government to do that. This amendment seeks to enshrine in law that that cannot be done in the future unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as those I have outlined.