Having Limerick people vote in Kerry North ‘illogical’

PLANS to make 14,000 Limerick voters cast their ballot in the Kerry North constituency at the next election have been described as illogical.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the move amounted to the “dismemberment” of the county and was proof that an overhaul was needed of the way the Constituency Commission set electoral boundaries.

Mr Gilmore was addressing one of his party’s local election selection conventions in Limerick last night. He called for an extra layer of public consultation to be built into the process of revising constituencies.

Current rules require the commission to seek public opinions before making final recommendations, but Mr Gilmore said a draft report should be published after the initial public consultation and only when the public had a further chance to submit views should the final report be made.

“This would at least allow people who believe that a particular recommendation is illogical, irrational or inconsistent with the commission’s own terms of reference, to make that point,” he said.

He also called for constituencies to be revised as soon as preliminary census figures were available, as it was often too late to begin redrawing boundaries by the time the final census data was approved. There was usually very little difference between preliminary and final census figures, he said, and while the High Court had ruled against two TDs who challenged their constituency boundaries before the last general election, the judge said the Government should consider changing the law to allow the use of preliminary figures.

“There is no doubt that, had the constituency boundaries been reviewed in advance of the recent election to reflect the changes in population experienced since 2002, then the outcome in a number of constituencies would have been different. Whether these would have been sufficient to alter the overall outcome of the election, nobody can say.”

Mr Gilmore also urged a return to larger constituencies, saying evidence pointed to greater proportional representation in four and five-seater constituencies compared to three-seaters.

“More than one third of all constituencies are now three-seaters, the configuration that produces the least proportional outcome,” he said. “Kerry South, because the Ceann Comhairle is automatically returned, will actually become a two-seater, which comes close to rendering the constitutional right of the people of Kerry South to proportional representation null and void.”