Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 460: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the 2006 preliminary census results underestimated the population recorded in the official 2006 census by almost 5,000 persons, and that if the preliminary census results for 2011 underestimate the official census results by 8,731 persons or more, his proposal to amend his Electoral (Amendment) Bill for a lower limit of 153 TDs, in place of his original proposed lower limit of 152, will lead to an unconstitutional provision in the Bill, thereby potentially rendering the terms of reference of the Constituency Commission unconstitutional and placing in jeopardy the validity of the Commission's final report; if he is genuinely taking the unprecedented population increases that have occurred here into account in this Bill, he will not only raise the lower limit in the Bill but also the higher limit of 160; his views on the fact that Ireland currently has an optimum ratio of Members of a Lower House of Parliament to the country's population according to the cube root law of assembly sizes; and if his further attention has been drawn to the fact that there are many European countries with a higher proportion of Members of a Lower House of Parliament to the population of those countries, and that there are over 1.2 million more persons living in the country than there were living in the country when the numbers of TDs were set by the Oireachtas at 166. [22060/11]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Section 9(1) of the Electoral Act 1997 requires a Constituency Commission to wait until the Central Statistics Office has published the final census figures before presenting its Report to the Ceann Comhairle. The Commission must finish its work not later than 3 months after the final census figures are published. Therefore, the Commission's report will be based on the Census Report setting out the final result of the Census in respect of the total population of the State.

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to reduce the number of members in Dáil Éireann. The provisions set out in the Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2011 respond to this commitment. The terms of reference of a Constituency Commission as set out in the Bill require a Constituency Commission to recommend a set of constituencies based on a number of members of Dáil Éireann between 153 and 160. However, the terms of reference are subordinate to the relevant constitutional provisions. A Commission cannot recommend constituencies that do not meet the Constitutional requirements.