The boundary commission’s findings were published some time ago but the new year presents a good opportunity to debate proposals for reform of the political system, at least on a geographical basis.
There is an appetite for a reduction in the number of Deputies. The people should get what they want in this instance. Speakers have referred ad nauseam to the commitment in the Fine Gael election manifesto in respect of a reduction of 20 in the number of Deputies. This level of reduction was not possible owing to the extraordinary growth in population in the past decade as shown in the census figures for 2006 and 2011.
My own community in north Dublin, Fingal, has seen unprecedented growth, so much so that it is the fastest growing local community in Europe. The average age of its population in 2006 was 31.2 years; it is now 31.7 years. However, with such a young community come strains on local services, but that is a debate for another day. An increase in population of 8.2% has made it necessary to consolidate constituency boundaries. I agree with Deputy John O’Mahony in his point about County Mayo and having boundaries which are contiguous. He noted that counties had been split in half. He also referred to the involvement of four local authorities in one constituency, resulting in Deputies having to deal with four county managers. This makes it very difficult for public representatives to carry out their duties efficiently and effectively.
In the case of my constituency, the town of Swords was split down the middle by the previous boundary commission and divided between the constituencies of Dublin West and Dublin North. This was controversial and a difficult issue at the time for both councillors, Deputies and Senators who endeavoured to represent their constituencies effectively. The town has now been unified, which is welcome. The reunification of Portmarnock with Dublin North and the neighbouring town of Malahide is also very important as the two towns have a symbiotic relationship. They share shopping facilities, the amenity of the strand at Portmarnock and the promenade at Malahide. The two communities are interlinked to such an extent that it would not make sense to separate them.
With regard to the fifth seat, Fingal has always been consistently under-represented at local authority level by comparison with its country cousins. Councillors in some local authority wards represent 10,000 to 13,000 people. Deputy Luke Flanagan, as a former local authority member, will know that some local authority representatives represent as few as 1,200 people.
That is another argument. The point is that there is an imbalance in representation. It is important that there be a re-balance and that is why I am pleased to see the extra seat being allocated to the north side of Dublin and my constituency.
Political reform is not a reduction in the number of Deputies; rather, it is changing and consolidating what they do. It is about defining the boundaries between Deputies, Senators, councillors and mayors such that there is no overlap. Without achieving this, local authority members will continue to bite at the heels of Deputies in the hope that they will replace them at the next election, and Deputies who lose their seats, like so many at the last general election, will continue to regard local authority elections as their saviour. If we do not define the roles of elected representatives, there will be continual rotation among local authority members, Deputies and Senators.
This is a young, growing nation. The number of children born here today rivals that during the baby boom of the 1960s and 1970s. The Department of Education and Skills made massive planning mistakes in the past, as is evident from the fact that 80 students showed up with bags and uniforms to a school in Balbriggan in which they were not even enrolled and which was not capable of supporting them. The Department assumed that when a couple buys a house, they will have a schooling requirement four or five years later. In fact, when a couple buys a house, there is an immediate schooling requirement because they will already have a couple of kids, and potentially more on the way. Failures regarding the planning of strategic local services must not continue. They are not continuing under the Department at present.
We need to be able to plan for the increasing populations in towns such as Swords, Balbriggan, Blanchardstown and Tallaght, and other hotspots of growth around the country, such that we do not need to change the boundaries of constituencies every four or five years. There needs to be representative consistency so there will not be circumstances such as those in which Swords was split in 2008 by the boundary commission. We should not have circumstances such as those in which Portmarnock must be skived off Dublin North to extend the life span of Dublin North-East for couple of years before it finally gives up the ghost and must be put in with another constituency nearby, all with a view to giving Dublin Bay North the ability to sustain itself on an ongoing basis. I appreciate that we will not achieve what I am suggesting on this occasion but I suggest that when the boundary commission is being given its terms of reference in the future, growth will be accounted for sufficiently in the drawing up of constituencies.