Irish Elections: Geography, Facts and Analyses

Adrian Kavanagh, 21st June 2012

The 2012 Constituency Commission report was published today and the level of changes in it are very dramatic and belie the generally conservative approach taken by the Commission in the previous two reports. There are three fewer constituencies, four less 3-seat constituencies and one more 4-seat constituency, making for the largest ever nunber of 4-seat general election constituencies in Ireland.  I hope to comment on these changes in more detail over the coming days, but for now here are some initial observations on these changes (which I’ll add to as the day progresses).

• No changes were made to the existing European election constituency boundaries.
• One pleasing aspect of this Constituency Commission report is the fact that there is a sense that this time they did pay attention to the public submissions. People living in the areas with the largest numbers of submissions relating to them (Swords, Leitrim, Terenure, Cork) generally tended to get what they had been looking for. I’m particularly pleased for the people of Leitrim for whom the division of the county was a major concern, although people in south Donegal and west Cavan will beg to differ.
• One aspect that I’m not pleased with relates to the decision to keep the north-eastern part of Carlow in with Wicklow – while the population per TD ratio for Wicklow County would be 5.9% lower than the national average greater degrees of variance have been allowed by past Commissions to preserve county boundaries (Louth and Cavan-Monaghan in 2004, Cavan-Monaghan in 2007).  

Adrian Kavanagh, 25th May 2012

Following on the publication of final/definitive population statistics for Census 2011 on March 29th, the Constituency Commission has been completing the task of drawing up a new general (and European) election boundary report. They have also been tasked with deciding on a reduction in Dail seat numbers with the number of seats in the Dail to fall from  166, as present, to between 153 and 160; media reports today suggest they are likely to decide to opt for a 158-seat Dail Eireann.

Having decided on Dail seat numbers, the key thing that the Commission will be watching for in this review are constituencies whose population per TD ratios fall outside the 5% variance limit – that is, whose population per TD ratios are either more than 5% above, or below, the state average for this. In the case of a 158-seat Dail, the state average would be 29,040 people per TD, meaning that the Commission would need to look at/consider making changes to constituencies with population per TD ratios lower than 27,588 people per TD and greater than 30,492 people per TD. In these cases, the Commission must consider whether they need to make changes to the boundaries/seat numbers for these constituencies. On past precedents, they may opt not to make changes if the level of variance is not much higher than this 5% limit (as happened in the case of Cavan Monaghan in both the 2004 and 2007 revisions) but they must make changes if the level of variance exceeds 7.89% – the maximum level of variance permitted by past commissions (Mayo East in the 1983 revisions) – constituencies falling into this category would have constituencies with population per TD ratios lower than 26,74people per TD and greater than 31,331 people per TD. This chart helps identify the constituencies whose boundaries may/will need to be changed.

Extent to which constituencies’ population per TD ratios vary from state average for different seat number options (and likelihood of boundary changes being made to these – as highlighted in yellow/blue)

So what are the likely changes to be made in relation to our current Dail constituencies? Continue reading →