Elections, census and inproportionate representation

With the legal challenge to the constituency boundaries by Finian McGrath and Catherine Murphy, this has brought up the problem of under and over representation of certain areas. With the timing of the census just a year before elections, this has caused the problem that McGrath and Murphy are seeking to highlight. This is insufficient timing to allow boundary revisions to take place.

As long as we have stable governments (with them lasting full terms), and no major national issues that prevent timing of the census (like foot and mouth), this issue of the census being taken too soon to elections will persist until we have an unstable government as both, the census and the general election, are due to take place every 5 years.

To counter this ongoing problem, may i suggest that we hold a census soon after this election. The timing of the census should allow for a constituency review to be carried out before the next election.

I am aware there are problems to my suggestion like added cost to taxpayer (i doubt undertaking a census is cheap), possibility of government collapsing and early elections, and no one listening to what i think, but this saga about inproportionate representation in the dail is possible to go on and on unless action is taken so that the census can provide timely information that is used in time for setting constituency boundaries.