John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Because Cork is such a big county, as I said previously on Second Stage, it should have been set up with about four or five local authorities, never mind two, when the local government system was being established. Be that is it may, we specifically spelled out population because - I got into trouble in the other House for saying this - local authorities should serve primarily people wherever they live. In this case we are talking about fairly densely populated urban and suburban communities with little bits of the immediate rural hinterland. Therefore to spell out in the legislation that population would be the major driver was an honest statement. While it is a tiny geographic area of the overall county, we did not exclude geography from the provisions of this section, but population has to be the central thing. That is why I am not in a position to accept amendment No. 1.