We’d demanded more housing, hospitals, roads: did anyone here order more TDs?

IT appears, via the quills of the nation’s political correspondents, that there has been only one topic of debate occupying the minds of our holidaying TDs throughout this wash-out summer.

No, not how to build more housing and free up the derelict and empty properties.

No, not how to fast-track the new children’s hospital, or exert pressure on the builders of Cork’s new event centre.

Not new school buildings either, silly.

And, no, not how to speed up the building of the Cork-Limerick motorway, or the long-promised tram system for Cork city.

As for climate change? I’m afraid our politicians have been fiddling around with something else while half the planet burns.

So, what is this matter of great import which has had our political classes chattering?

Why, it’s the apparently crucial matter of an increased number of TDs in the Dáil.

Yes, while some of us may occasionally be tempted to tell one or two politicians to go forth and multiply - they have been plotting to do exactly that.

The gossip in political circles has centred on the Electoral Commission’s review of constituency numbers, which was finally published on Wednesday.

It has recommended that the number of TDs needs to increase from 160 to 174.

And that means 14 shiny new TD positions have been created, on a basic wage of €107,376.

Why is this?

Our lords and masters tell us the increase is needed to keep in step with Ireland’s rising population, which has now passed the five million mark.

The problem is that our Constitution demands that there be a certain ratio of people to each TD, and that this needs to be between the 20,000 to 30,000 people mark.

That 30,000 figure has been breached in recent years, hence the Electoral Commissions’s review, and hence the recommendation to put more TDs’ bums on seats in the Oireachtas.

But, like I said, there has been no call from the people for an extra batch of TDs (what is the collective noun for them, a gaggle, a herd, a swarm, a pestilence? Answers on a postcard please).

So, I wonder why the Electoral Commission didn’t just suggest that, instead of electing more TDs, we changed the rules of the 1937 Constitution - which is something we are rarely shy of doing.

All that would be needed is a referendum asking whether we should drop the self-imposed quorum on representative numbers per TD, which after all was probably decided upon in a smoky room by Éamon de Valera, at a time when Ireland’s population was in serious decline.

We could vote on this at the same time as deleting that line in the Constitution about a woman’s place being in the home, if they ever get around to deciding on thr wording on that.

Ah, but where is the fun in that, when we could have yet more TDs in the Dáil, said nobody ever?

Not surprisingly, politicians are broadly in favour of boosting their numbers - just as a turkey won’t vote for Christmas, but will vote for a stay of execution and some extra feed.

More TDs naturally means a greater chance of them being elected. The dynasties must be drooling in anticipation.

Indeed, the reason this issue has been the talk of the political classes all summer is that the politicians have been parsing and prejudging the effects of extra TDs in various constituencies.

How will several extra seats in Dublin affect Fine Gael’s chances? What will Fianna Fáil make of a redrawn Cork South Central electoral boundary? How can Sinn Féin take advantage of the extra seat in Corn North Central?

The changes will mean a re-drawing of some electoral boundaries, which could put some sitting TDs at risk of being voted out at the next election.

Extra TD jobs, plus a hint of jeopardy - you can see why the politicians have been getting excited.

Less so the voters; the very people who are suffering from too few houses, too few hospitals and staff, and all the other ills that beset our society.

Ah, says you, but happen that old Dev had a point: We do need proper representation for the people - and if the population grows, then surely the number of elected representatives needs to follow suit?

Not so.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that, as a country grows in population, there is no real need to increase the numbers in parliament accordingly.

In fact, compared to most countries in western Europe, there is an argument we actually should be culling our pool, not introducing more of them into the wild.

In Ireland, we have 3.3 TDs per 100,000 people, but in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy and France, the figure is just one parliamentary representative per 100,000 people.

The outliers - like Malta, which has 14 national parliament members per 100,000 inhabitants - tend to be small countries.

If Ireland keeps on stacking up extra TDs to stay under that 30,000 threshold in line with Article 16 in the Constitution, we could have 250 TDs by the middle of the century as the population grows. 

That’s almost one for everyone in the audience!

If Ireland’s formula was used elsewhere, there would be 2,250 MPs in the UK, for instance, rather than the current 650!

At least minister Simon Harris came out this week and acknowledged the fact that a change in the Constitution may be needed to stop this madness.

The bad news is, the Electoral Commission report was just the start, and now the horse trading is set to begin in earnest on its results, taking up more time among politicians that could be spent on the pressing issues of the day.

Did anyone here order an extra TD?