The Labour Party has called on the Government to move quickly to have constituency boundaries redrawn before the next election, to end the uncertainty in the wake of the preliminary census figures.
Attorney General Rory Brady has been asked to report back to the Government next month on whether it would be legally safe to proceed with the election on the current boundaries, in the light of the wide disparities shown by the census.
A Labour spokesman said yesterday that given the likelihood of a legal challenge to the current constituencies, it would be in everyone's interest to have the issue clarified well before the election.
Preliminary figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed huge variations from the national average of TDs to population across the constituencies, with the most extreme being Dublin West, which is 21 per cent above the average, with Dún Laoghaire more than 10 per cent below it.
The High Court laid down some time ago that the variation from the average should not be more than 5 per cent in either direction. When the census figures were published last month, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche told the Cabinet that there was no need for a constituency revision before the election, as the 2006 census figures were preliminary and not the final ones.
However, Mr Brady advised the Cabinet that there were legal and constitutional issues to be explored. He was authorised to report back to the Cabinet next month. Subsequently there were suggestions that the CSO might be able to bring forward the final figures but a spokeswoman told The Irish Times that this would not be possible. The earliest the final figures would be available was next March.
The preliminary figures are based on the results provided by census enumerators who tot up the information from the individual census forms for which they are responsible. The final results are based on a count of all the individual forms.
At the publication of the census, the director general of the CSO, Donal Garvey, said there was little or no difference between the preliminary and the final figures. He refused to be drawn on constituency changes saying: "It is up to the political system to react to these figures."
Most of the constituency revisions in the past have been conducted on final census figures but preliminary figures were used for a major revision in 1947.
The Constitution lays down that the ratio between TDs and population , "as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall, so far as is practicable, be the same throughout the country".
The issue to be decided by the Attorney General is whether the preliminary census figures constitute "the last preceding census".
The most recent legislation governing the matter is the 1997 Electoral Act which states: "Upon the publication by the Central Statistics Office, following a Census of Population, of the Census Report setting out the population of the State classified by area there shall be established by the Minister, by order, a commission (in this Act referred to as a Constituency Commission)."
