Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a rather unusual anomaly but one that I think will be of interest to Members of these Houses, that is, the revision of constituency boundaries to be carried out by the new Electoral Commission. As people will know, the commission has been set up and tasked with drawing up the new Dáil and European election boundaries. It has set a closing date of 10 May 2023 for submissions. The boundary decisions are to be based on the results of census 2022. The difficulty is that, according to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, it is not scheduled to publish the final details of the summary results until 30 May of this year and not scheduled to publish the small area population statistics until 21 September. The difficulty, obviously, is that for anyone looking to make a meaningful submission, and people know about moving bodies of populations between constituencies and between counties, it is very difficult to do so unless we have the granular detail of the census. The CSO, as everyone knows, does fantastic work in respect of the information it provides.

I have raised this with the Electoral Commission, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the CSO. They see that it is a difficulty. It is important, obviously, that the Electoral Commission bases its decisions on the most accurate statistics. Equally, however, it is important that those who wish to make submissions have that opportunity. We have seen in the past and we all know about electoral boundaries which may not make sense within particular localities. I have raised this personally but, as a matter of bigger concern, I ask that the Deputy Leader raise it with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which I have done on behalf of these Houses, and with the commission because it is important, as per the democratic process, that there is an opportunity for input. It will be very difficult, in the absence of these detailed figures, for a comprehensive decision to be made.