Labour: Make every constituency in country a five-seater

EVERY Dáil constituency in the country should be a five-seater, according to a radical proposal made to the Constituency Commission by the Labour Party.

In its submission to the commission, the party argues that four-seat, and particularly three-seat, constituencies are “skewed” in favour of Fianna Fáil and the number of seats don’t reflect the percentage of support for each party.

“All other things being equal, a Dáil made up of 33 five-seat constituencies would be preferable to one made up of 55 three- seaters,” the party states in its submission.

“The first of those two options would more accurately, and therefore more effectively, represent the voting intentions of the electorate. It would do better what proportional representation and the single transferable vote system was devised to do.”

It is pointed out that there were 41 constituencies between 1980 and 1995 but the number grew to 42 in 1998 and 43 in 2003.

“In those 25 years, the number of three-seat constituencies grew from 13 to 18, the number of four- seaters fluctuated but it’s now back to the original 13 and the number of five-seat constituencies has shrunk from 15 to 12,” it claims.

The proposal goes on to argue that the 2007 election produced a seat bonus of more than 5% for Fianna Fáil and that the bonus was most marked in the three-seat constituencies. It gained over 46% of the seats with 41% of the vote.

In five-seat constituencies, Labour argues, its vote matched the number of seats it won, whereas in three- seaters it got half the seats but less than 44% of the vote.

Unusually, the party declines from making any specific suggestions for constituencies.

Fianna Fáil drew criticism in Kerry last week when it was revealed that it wants some parts of North Kerry, such as Tarbert and Duagh, transferred to Limerick West to accommodate a single five-seat constituency.