There is a little surprise in the post for the political parties tomorrow morning, a surprise I will get to later in this column. But first an observation: it is clear that there is no difference between the major parties, writes Vincent Browne.
They are all in favour of tax cuts, they all want to reduce or abolish stamp duty, they all have agreed the health service has to be reformed and more beds made available, they all agree on crime, on the need for more gardaí, for smaller class sizes, good-quality drinking water, on protecting the environment, on world peace. They disagree only on who would best manage the running of the country, the health service and the Garda.
The present Government has given every reason to believe it is incapable of managing the country. It overspent by more than €12 billion on the roads programme. Isn't that alone enough to establish its inability to run the country? The claim that it has now got to grips with the roads budget is no reassurance. That this crowd of bunglers would have to spend in excess of €12 billion on their "learning curve" is testimony enough to their incompetence. But this is only part of the story.
Remember the indemnity deal with the religious orders? The original idea was that the cost of compensating people abused in institutions run by the religious orders on behalf of the State would be shared on a 50-50 basis. But the State ends up paying about €1 billion and the religious orders got away with about €75 million.
Remember the Martin Cullen-Monica Leech controversy? A finding of the inquiry that investigated that arrangement was that the State paid over €80,000 for one-to-one consultations between Mr Cullen and Ms Leech, that is aside from what she was paid otherwise. How could a Government that includes this man be deemed fit for re-election? But then the other lot have never run anything in their lives, aside from a few months in the Department of Tourism for Enda Kenny and the same time for Pat Rabbitte on the cabinet high chair. What reason is there to think they too would not require a €12 billion learning curve?
So what to do. Re-elect a crowd of proven incompetents or elect a crowd who have proven nothing? And now to the surprise in the post.
Tomorrow morning the Central Statistics Office is publishing its final report on the population in each constituency, and this could (indeed should) give rise to serious concern among all the political parties.
The Constitution (Article 16.2.3) requires that the ratio of TDs to population, "as ascertained at the last preceding census", shall be, "so far as is practicable", the same throughout the country.
In a High Court case in 1961, the judge said a deviation of more than 5 per cent from the average would probably be unconstitutional. If that is so, then a very large number of constituencies have boundaries that are unconstitutional. In some constituencies, people are over-represented and in others under-represented.
Tomorrow's publication of the final census results of April 2006 will show the population at 4,234,925, which works out at 25,512 per TD.
Among the major deviations from the average are the following. In DúLaoghaire there is a population of only 22,787 with five TDs. This is an 11 per cent deviation. In Cork North Central there is a 10 per cent deviation. In Kerry South 8 per cent. Meanwhile, in Kildare South the population is 106 per cent of the average, a 6 per cent deviation. In Louth there is a 9 per cent deviation above the average. In Meath East 13 per cent, in Dublin North 17 per cent and in Dublin West 21 per cent.
Unless the courts were to find that the acceptable deviation of 5 per cent was wildly out of kilter, then in all these constituencies - in fact in all of 17 out of the 42 constituencies - there is an unconstitutional variation.
Were it the case that there just was not enough time between the publication of the final census results and the last day on which a general election could be called for the constituencies to be revised, one could see that the courts probably would find that the overriding interests of the public good necessitated the election going ahead on the basis of an unconstitutional deviation in population number. But clearly that is not so.
A general election need not be held until the beginning of July. The constituencies review committee could decide on boundary changes in an afternoon (okay, since they will make a song and dance of an elementary calculation give them a week), then the election could be called. It is true that boundary and constituency changes would cause great disruption for the parties but why should the courts have regard to that, all the more so since we have known for nearly a year that there would have to be boundary changes?
This depends on the courts and ultimately on the Supreme Court, and who knows what that court might decide since they ordered a year ago that a man should be jailed on conviction of a crime the court found did not exist.