Clare will remain a four seat constituency in the next Dáil and European Parliament elections.
It follows the publication of the Electoral Commission’s independent recommendations to the Oireachtas this morning on the make-up of Ireland’s electoral constituencies.
The Electoral Commission’s recommendations look to significantly reduce county boundary breaches that see people voting in a constituency outside of their county, maintain a relative balance of seats across constituencies and maintain a high level of continuity in the arrangement of constituencies.
Among the recommendations are that there will be 174 TDs representing 43 Constituencies in the next Dáil, up from the current 160 TDs in 39 Constituencies.
The number of 3 seat constituencies would be 13 instead of 9, the number of 4 seat constituencies would be 15 instead of 17 and the
number of 5 seat constituencies would be 15 instead of 13.
Seven constituencies would remain entirely unchanged since the last review, namely Clare, Limerick County, Cork South-West, Donegal, Dublin Central, Kerry and Waterford.
Seven breaches of county boundaries will be removed, two existing breaches reduced, one breach remains as is and three new breaches are proposed and a new inter-county constituency of Wicklow-Wexford is recommended.
The recommendation to leave Clare as a 4 seat constituency comes despite a population increase in this county, but was made in the interest of retaining both county boundaries and maintaining continuity.
Submissions for the Clare constituency saw a significant number focus on the placement of the Ballyglass Electoral Division, with a large number of submissions referred directly to the position of this ED.
Although a small number of these were in favour of the Ballyglass ED returning to the Limerick City constituency, the vast majority were in favour of it remaining in this county.
There were also submissions that advocated for Clare to become a 5 seat constituency, with transfers from Galway East, but the report states that this would have created a new county boundary breach.
Meanwhile, a Clare Independent TD has raised concerns that some of the Electoral Commission’s independent recommendations will give unfair advantage to areas such as Cork and Dublin.
Scariff Deputy Michael McNamara has been telling Clare FM’s Sean Lyons that additional seats in those two areas could mean major parties will focus on running candidates there.
You can listen to the full interview here:
