Recommendations Made To Implement New Inter-County Constituency Of Wicklow/Wexford

The Electoral Commission has made its independent recommendations to the Oireachtas on the make-up of Ireland’s electoral constituencies for the next Dáil and European Parliament elections.

The Commission recommends that the next Dáil would see 174 TDs representing 43 Dáil Constituencies, up from the current 160 TDs in 39 Constituencies. 

The recommendations published today:

Meet the constitutional requirements on representation – each TD in a 174 seat Dáil would represent an average of 29,593 people, down from the current 32,182.

The recommendations also meet the statutory criteria set down for this review – they:

• Significantly reduce county boundary breaches - that see people voting in a constituency outside of their county. The number of county boundary breaches has been minimised in a 174 seat Dáil. The Commission recommends the removal of seven of the 10 existing breaches of county boundaries, reductions in the size of two existing breaches, and proposes just three new county boundary breaches.
• Maintain a relative balance of seats across constituencies - as the number of 3 seat constituencies will be 13 instead of 9, the number of 4 seat constituencies will be 15 instead of 17 and the number of 5 seat constituencies will be 15 instead of 13.
• Maintain a high level of continuity in the arrangement of constituencies - Seven constituencies remain entirely unchanged since the last review (Clare, Cork South-West, Donegal, Dublin Central, Kerry, Limerick County, and Waterford).

Seven seats would be on offer in the garden county at the next election with three of those seats in a new inter-county constituency of Wicklow and Wexford.

The Wicklow constituency would run from Bray to Wicklow Town and Baltinglass in the west:

And the Wicklow Wexford area which starts above Enniscorthy and finishes below Wicklow, taking in Arklow:

Green Party TD in Wicklow Steven Mathews says these changes will be significant.

In a statement Sinn Fein Deputy John Brady said the move is effectively a hatchet job on Wicklow.  

"The fact is that the Boundary revision means that the Municipal Districts of Wicklow and Baltinglass will be split, which is not a good outcome, and has the potential to unnecessarily complicate the business of local government in the area. County Councillors in these areas will have to deal with seven TDs. While the TDs in the new Wicklow-Wexford constituency will also have to deal with two Councils with a total of sixty-six councillors."

South Wicklow is an area that requires national intervention and assistance. The big fear here now is that this decision will mean that the needs of the south of the county will be lost amidst the administrative confusion as officials attempt to navigate their way in this artificial constituency."  

While Senator Pat Casey said the move is bad for fairness in representation for Wicklow.

"East, South and West Wicklow remain at risk of having no resident TD following the poor decision of the Electoral Commission to split County Wicklow unevenly and allow South Wicklow to be in a minority position with regard to the larger North Wexford element. The figures would suggest that at least 2 TD's would be based in Wexford and as County and area identities matter there is a significant risk that large areas of County Wicklow will have no resident TD."