‘Political considerations not a feature’ of constituency boundary reform

Winners and losers when the report is published on Wednesday, says the Electoral Commission’s chief executive

The Electoral Commission’s chief executive Art O’Leary said that 'to the greatest extent possible we tried to abide by county boundaries' in the work to reform constituencies.

Politicians and the public disappointed with the outcome of reforms of constituencies can take it that such situations were unavoidable, the Electoral Commission’s chief executive Art O’Leary has said.

Mr O’Leary said there will be winners and losers when the report is published on Wednesday. It is being anxiously awaited by TDs and political parties.

Mr O’Leary said a small number of constituencies were in situations where the commission had only two options — either create two-seater constituencies or take away a piece of the constituency as set out by the terms of reference.

He said this was a challenging aspect of the carve-up of the electoral landscape.

The Constitution states there must be one TD for every 20,000-30,000 people. Due to the rise in Ireland’s population, more TDs are now required. Currently, all but one of the 39 Dáil constituencies have more than 30,000 people per TD.

'Abided by county boundaries'

“To the greatest extent possible we tried to abide by county boundaries and if there are instances where people are unhappy about not voting with their wider community then I think you can take it that such situations were unavoidable and the alternatives were even more unpalatable,” said Mr O’Leary.

He said commission members read the more than 500 submissions and treated them seriously. He said that, for the first time, the commission has provided responses to submissions in cases where it agreed and in cases where what was being pledged was not possible.

Boundary changes will have a significant impact on many TDs whose constituency may be hived off into another county and they could struggle to retain their seat at the next general election.

“Our focus entirely here is on the citizens and population and political considerations in relation to this just weren’t a feature of our discussions at all,” said Mr O’Leary.

The commission will publish its review on Wednesday morning at 8am.