When I examined the preliminary census results last Wednesday, the first point that struck me was how accurate have been the Central Statistics Office's recent annual estimates of our population. For the new census figures are completely in line with the estimates being made by the CSO right up to their estimates for April 2005.
Indeed, when allowance is made for the acceleration of immigration since that date, anyone using those CSO April 2005 estimates for calculating the likely outcome of this 2006 census would have been dead on target, not just about the total population of the State, but also the breakdown of our population between each of the eight planning regions.
The second point that struck me forcibly is the remarkably even growth of our population at regional level during this recent four-year period. In the 1990s, the Dublin region had been growing slightly faster than the rest of the country, but this is no longer the case. For the first time in a half-century, the growth of population in the Dublin region has been no higher than in the rest of the country.
This reflects the fact that, for whatever reason, in this recent period most middle-class areas of Dublin have started to lose population. In the northeast of the city this is true of Howth, Sutton, Baldoyle and Portmarnock, and in the southern outskirts of Dublin the population has dropped almost everywhere except near the mountains and in Clonskeagh and Dundrum.
It is also highly significant that during the past four years no less than three-quarters of the 2,600 rural areas in the State have experienced increases in population. As a result, whenever a redistribution of our 166 Dáil seats on the basis of this year's census comes to be undertaken, there will, for the first time, be no need to transfer any seat from some other part of the country to the Dublin region.
In fact, despite the headlines in last Thursday's papers about an alleged need for major constituency changes, the only alterations actually required to ensure that no constituency is under-represented or over-represented by more than the accepted margin of 8 per cent would be some boundary changes within Cork city and Dublin, together with the transfer of a single Dáil seat from the southwest corner of our State to the northeast corner.
In Cork city, the transfer of an area containing about 3,000 people from Cork South-Central to Cork North-Central would bring both these constituencies within the 9 per cent tolerance. Dublin, however, is a little more complex, but no change in constituency sizes would be necessary if some border adjustments were made affecting only 4 per cent of the total population of Co Dublin.
In the northeast of the city, the transfer of areas in Baldoyle and Portmarnock with about 10,000 inhabitants across the county boundary from Dublin North to Dublin North-East would bring both these constituencies within the 8 per cent tolerance limit.
To the west and south of the city, because of the population decline in many middle-class parts of south Dublin, some 30,000 inhabitants would need to be transferred, in each case to constituencies south or east of those in which these voters are currently located. The southern part of Castleknock would have to be moved, again across a county boundary, from Dublin West to Dublin Mid-West; the rural parts of Dublin Mid-West would have to be moved to Dublin South-West; Firhouse village would rejoin the rest of Firhouse in Dublin South; and small parts of Cabinteely and Stillorgan which currently vote in Dublin South would be reunited with the remainder of these two suburbs in the Dún Laoghaire constituency.
At national level, the only other constituency adjustment that seems to be required to bring our present constituencies back within an 8 per cent margin of tolerance is one that arises because the growing Louth-Meath area is now short of a seat, while Kerry-Limerick now has one more seat than that to which this area's population now entitles it.
Whether the extra seat in the northeast of the State should be added to Louth to make it a five-seat constituency or to East Meath to give this new constituency four seats will be for determination by the next independent Election Area Boundary Committee: either way some voters will find themselves voting on Dáil elections outside their home county.
Similarly in the southwest, if three-seat constituencies are to be kept in Kerry and West Limerick, it would be necessary to reduce East Limerick to a four-seat constituency, transferring some of its more rural areas containing some 15,000 voters to West Limerick - which, at the other end of the county, would have to lose to North Kerry the western half of its Newcastle rural area. And North Kerry in turn would lose a couple of thousand people to South Kerry.
These suggested changes do not represent the only possible solution to the problems posed by the relatively small changes in the spread of our population revealed by this Census - but the above very limited changes, affecting less than 2 per cent of our total population, would, I believe, be the simplest way of dealing with this issue.
Finally, when would these changes need to be made? Now, or some time after the next election? The Attorney General is to advise the Government on this matter. I believe that he may find that earlier attorneys general who in the past were asked for their advice on this may have expressed divergent views. This is because there are two different clauses in the Constitution that relate to this matter.
The media have recently concentrated their attention on Article 16.2.3, which provides that the ratio of members to "the population for each constituency as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall, so far as it is practicable, be the same throughout the country". But the media have ignored the immediately following sub-clause, which provides that "The Oireachtas shall revise the constituencies at least every 12 years, with due regard to changes in the distribution of the population".
It seems to me that the Supreme Court, which in any event is always reluctant to interfere with the legislature in matters that concern that body's affairs, would be disinclined to require a constituency review to take place unless and until a Dáil had failed to respect the 12-year requirement in Article 16.2.4. To me at least it is this second clause that ought to determine the timing of such reviews: the earlier one merely sets out criteria to be applied when a revision is undertaken within 12 years of the preceding one.
We must, however, await the Attorney General's view on this issue and whatever he may decide could be challenged in the courts.