David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak on this section for clarification purposes because our amendments were ruled out of order. I would like to be helpful to the Minister because he raised an issue about these amendments. Amendment No. 11 proposed that the Waterford county area should have 18 councillors. Amendment No. 12 separately proposed that the Waterford city area should also have 18 councillors. Therefore, we were proposing that County Waterford as a whole should have 36 councillors, as opposed to the 32 councillors currently provided for. I would like to make a point about the number of councillors in response to what the Minister said about the position in the North in this regard. He often speaks about the North when he comes into this House. We were proposing that this State should have a minimum of 1,165 councillors. That would bring us into line with the number of councillors in the North. The Minister's approach takes us-----