How the profile of folk in your area can make or break election chances

Constituency profiles offer some fascinating insights into who elects who and why, finds Political Correspondent Conor Ryan.

VOTERS have to mull over a complex spectrum of uniquely local issues before making their decisions in the polling booths in June.

Forty-three constituency profiles were published by the Oireachtas library and research staff this week ahead of the local elections.

The figures show the delicate manoeuvring each deputy had to do to get elected in 2007. Since then some candidates have taken up roles perfectly suited to their hometown audience but others have been charged with a difficult sell based on demographics and social problems.

Dublin south east, which elected youngsters Lucinda Creighton and Chris Andrews, has more than twice the amount of 25 to 29-year-olds than the national average.

In Kerry south — the area that returned the Dáil’s oldest deputy, 77-year-old Jackie Healy Rae — 14.1% of people are past retirement age.

Across the Cork border, where the marginally greener PJ Sheehan was elected, there is a higher proportion of people older than 40. The Oireachtas researchers behind the profile suggested this constituency appeared to be an area older people retired to after living elsewhere.

The profiles were based on the April 2006 census, which has been guiding the restructuring of constituencies for the next election.

However, age alone cannot explain the election of any candidate or their motives once in the Dáil.

Wicklow’s Joe Behan resigned from Fianna Fáil in protest at the cuts to the over-70s medical cards despite his constituency having a below average amount of older people.

And Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe flying a kite for the partial return of college fees runs contrary to his Cork east electorate who are among the least likely to have completed a third-level course.

His rival, Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes, is faced with similar issues in Dublin south west, where men in particular are more likely to have left school earlier and remain without a degree.

Hayes’s colleague Leo Varadkar has a more difficult task to use his front bench portfolio to make criticism resonate with his electorate. He is responsible for enterprise and employment but in Dublin mid-west the amount of men in work is high.

Conversely junior minister John McGuinness, who speaks on external trade, must go home to Carlow-Kilkenny, which the Oireachtas researchers suggested is in the midst of a brain drain.

The constituency profiles offer ample justification for the allocation of certain cabinet positions to specific parts of the country.

In this regard Eamon O’Cuiv is the most comfortable. The Dublin-born deputy was elected from Galway west and has made a home in the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

This means his decisions have a disproportionately positive affect on his constituents, who are the most likely to speak Irish.

Similarly, Brendan Smith’s control of Agriculture House has to play well when he returns home to Cavan-Monaghan, where the share of people who earn a living from farming is much higher than the national average.

In other areas, the statistics reveal a buffer zone certain cabinet posts offer to the incumbents.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan may not have appeased broadband campaigners nationally but along his canvass trail in Dublin south residents are much more likely to have high-speed internet access than the country as a whole.

However, because general elections demand a balancing act between parochial plamássing and national performance the profiles could play on the minds of the most high-profile decision makers.

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who has to wrestle with the political fallout from a potential property tax, faces homeowners 17% more likely to be carrying the burden of a mortgage than the rest of the country. Dublin west has the lowest share of people owning their homes outright.

Health Minister Mary Harney could brow-beat hospital consultants or nurses into new working practices in the knowledge her Clondalkin-Lucan-Newcastle patch has a particularly low level of health sector workers.

But, unfortunately for Sports Minister Martin Cullen, his decision to cut sports capital grants was unlikely to generate a warm reception ahead of his return to Waterford — where men are among the most eager to volunteer their time in sports’ organisations.