Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I am coming to that. It was also interesting to discover that Laois, because of its extraordinary increase in population, now has sufficient numbers for four seats. This suggests either that Laois-Offaly will end up as two three-seaters or that Laois will get four seats of its own.

County Leitrim has had a sorry history in the area of constituency amendments. It has been sundered by successive electoral commissions and by various Governments before that, prior to the establishment of the independent commission system. Every commission that has been established thus far has given an undertaking that county boundaries will be protected, with the let-out clause that this principle will be adhered to "in so far as is possible". A great deal of controversy was generated by the decision to split Leitrim and both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made submissions to the then commission in regard to the division of the county. I strongly disagreed with my party's position on this issue. I do not know what happened in terms of the consultation process in Fine Gael, but there was no such process in Fianna Fáil. If that is letting out State secrets, I do not care. Nobody was consulted and I do not even know who took the decision. It seems to have been presented at a Cabinet meeting as a fait accompli and subsequently became policy.

The legacy of that is the deep psychological scars in the county, apart altogether from the emotional element of it. I hope the Minister will tighten up the terms of reference of the electoral commission in order to ensure a more concrete consideration of the protection of county boundaries than a requirement that they be preserved "in so far as is possible". There is no question that we will be under threat, with the Minister indicating that there will be a reduction in the number of county councillors. This suggests that Leitrim will, at some point, find itself merged with another county.

I do not understand the rationale for permitting no more than five seats per constituency. In the early years of the State larger constituencies were the norm, with Sligo-Leitrim having seven seats in the 1920s and 1930s. What was so wrong with that?