Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty we have is that we either accept the outcome of the independent Constituency Commission report of 2012 or we do not. We set out the terms of reference for the commission. It independently examined all the issues involved, particularly the distribution of electorate per Member. The number of the electorate per Member will be 29,040 at the next Dáil election, assuming this legislation is passed. What we are doing is consistent with established practice since the first independent commission was established and reported in 1980.

The specification of constituencies is the core of this Bill. In my constituency, I would love to have the eastern part of Carlow back in Carlow-Kilkenny, but that is the way the chips fall, as it were, in terms of numbers per Member. It is certainly an inconvenience for the people of Cavan that they were not kept together as a county, considering the affinity all people in Ireland have with county boundaries, but the people of Leitrim had to go through the same purgatory in a political sense on the last occasion. Their county was divided in two. They are the swings and roundabouts of trying to match electorate numbers with elected Members in line with the Constitution and the requirement to have these constituencies in place for the next general election.

I am sorry that I am unable to accommodate the Senator's sentiments. To do so would again invite the notion that I would interfere in an independent process.