The new Dáil Constituency Commission, appointed in early June, is seeking submissions on the revisions of constituency boundaries that will be required to ensure equitable representation of every part of the State on the basis of last year's census of population, writes Garret FitzGerald. The deadline for such submissions is Tuesday next, July 31st.
Until the end of the 1970s, such revisions were carried out by successive ministers for local government, and eventually they became the object of gerrymandering designed both to benefit at the next election the government in office and to secure over-representation for rural areas at the expense of Dublin.
A constituency revision proposed by minister Kevin Boland almost 50 years ago involved such blatant and inequitable distortions that it was challenged in the courts personally by a Fine Gael politician, economist Dr John O'Donovan.
Distortions of urban/rural representation in this scheme were defended by the minister on the grounds of the longer distances that rural TDs have to travel to meet and service the needs of their constituents.
Dismissing this argument on the grounds that there was no constitutional warrant for TDs servicing the personal needs of constituents - the function of deputies was simply to legislate in the Dáil - Mr Justice Budd found that the distortions in the seat/population ratios for individual constituencies that had been proposed in the review were so large as to offend against democratic principles.
While the judge did not lay down how large legitimate variations in seat/population ratios could be, the minister in revising his proposed distribution of constituencies was careful to confine variations to a maximum of 5 per cent above or below the national average ratio.
This rule of thumb was followed in subsequent reviews, although that did not inhibit further attempts at ministerial gerrymandering, using the tactic of tailoring the sizes of constituencies in different parts of the State to the government party's expected voting pattern in each area.
The last such attempted gerrymander, by Labour minister Jimmy Tully in the mid-1970s (which I had opposed in government), backfired on the national coalition government, because no allowance was made for the four to five percentage point shift in votes in favour of Fianna Fáil that occurred in the subsequent 1977 election.
This gerrymander had the unintended effect of giving Fianna Fáil in 1977 by far the largest majority it ever secured.
Two years later, taoiseach Jack Lynch ended these abuses by establishing an independent constituency commission to undertake a review based on that year's population census, and since then all such revisions have been carried out in this way.
In line with the significant increase in population that had taken place since the previous census of 1971, Lynch also increased the number of Dáil seats by 18 to 166 - the last such increase proposed, despite a further 25 per cent population increase since that time. This increase in Dáil seats greatly facilitated me in winning 23 extra seats for Fine Gael in the 1981 general election.
The series of independent Dáil constituency commissions that have undertaken subsequent reviews have felt able to allow somewhat larger individual constituency deviations than had ministers for local government - up to 8 per cent above or below the national average of seats to population.
By this criterion, five constituencies are now under-represented and five others are over-represented - the remaining 33 being within the accepted margin.
As it happens, with one minor exception in Cork city, these problems are concentrated in only three parts of the State - Meath, Kerry/Limerick, and the Dublin suburbs.
As far as Cork city is concerned, a small margin of over-representation in the case of Cork North Central could be remedied quite simply by the transfer to it of a section of a neighbouring part of Cork South Central inhabited by as few as 600 people.
Next, if the part of Meath East from Slane northwards is transferred to the Meath West constituency, together with the continuation of the inclusion of the Delvin area of Westmeath in the Meath West constituency, this would justify the addition of a fourth seat to that constituency, thus bringing both Meath constituencies back within the 8 per cent tolerance.
That extra seat would come from the Limerick/Kerry area. These two counties have 14 seats between them, one more than is required by their 2006 population.
To enable both the Limerick and Kerry constituencies to keep within the 8 per cent margin, a small area around Abbeyfeale in West Limerick should be transferred to the North Kerry constituency, and a small adjustment should be made of that constituency's boundary with South Kerry. Then, by transferring to Limerick West most of the rural areas of Limerick East, the latter constituency could be reduced to a four-seater, yielding up its fifth seat to provide the additional seat needed in Meath.
The only other changes needed to bring our present constituencies into line with the results of the 2006 census would be some constituency boundary changes within Dublin - such as the transfer of Portmarnock and part of Kinsealy from Dublin North to Dublin North East.
However, within the total of 47 seats allocated to Dublin, the commission might decide, as well as modifying some boundaries, to make some changes in the number of seats allocated to some constituencies.
It can be seen from this analysis that, whereas in the last review changes had to be made in 18 of the 31 constituencies outside Dublin, in the aftermath of the 2006 census only eight such constituencies - two each in Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Meath - now need changes.
It has to be added, however, that it is quite possible - even likely - that, by the time the next election is called, there may have been yet another constituency review - following the 2011 census.
The preliminary census results for 2011 will be available in July of that year. A recent constitutional decision by the High Court has authorised the use of these provisional data as a basis for the preparation of the next Dáil constituency review in advance of the publication of its final proposals - although the changes based on these preliminary figures may not be enacted into law before the final results of that census become available in March or April 2012. That would be just in time for an election in June of that year - if the present Dáil, like its two predecessors, runs its full course.
However, even though the constituency changes currently in preparation may never in fact be used, they have to be enacted in order to prepare for the possibility that an election might be called earlier than May or June 2012.