DESPITE the loss of a senior ministry in the latest cabinet re-shuffle, Limerick’s two constituencies will retain their seven Dáil seats following the Constituency Commission’s recommendations published this week.
The Commission has recommended the transfer of a number of areas both in and out of Limerick City and County.
Moving out of the Limerick City constituency is the electoral area of Ballyglass with almost 6,000 voters. This includes, parts of Ardnacrusha, Parteen, Shannon Banks and Westbury.
The transfer of Tipperary electoral areas of Newport, Kilcomenty and Birdhill, will see almost 4,400 voters moving to the four seat Limerick City constituency.
Meantime, the 2,008 registered voters in the electoral areas of Cappamore, Doon West and Bilboa will now cast their ballots in the three seat Limerick County constituency at the next General Election.
In its report, the Commission said that it first looked at the six counties of Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, Offaly, Laois and Kildare as a whole, given that part of county Tipperary is in the Offaly constituency and part of county Kildare is in the Laois constituency.
“At present these six counties form eight constituencies for the election of 29 members of the Dáil.
“The total population of the six counties is 858,431, equivalent to 29 seats in a 160 member Dáil, and therefore no change is needed”, the report stated.
While the retention of the the seven seats was welcomed by Deputy Niall Collins who said it was “positive news for Limerick and the Mid West”, his Fianna Fáil party colleague Deputy Willie O’Dea said that the changes “could pose hugely disruptive to constituents”.
Speaking of the proposed voting transitions out of the Northside of the Limerick City constituency, the Fianna Fáil election poll topper said that the movement of voters out of the city constituency, where they are so close to where they work and socialise, was very disruptive.
“They’re now out in Clare, where they will have voting affinity with places like Kilfenora and right up to the Galway border.
“The same could be said for the people to the East of the city constituency who have been moved to the County. I represented those people for a long period of time so the same argument could be made,” he added.
The report said that “having regard to population changes in Limerick and to the variances in the existing constituencies, some alteration of constituency boundaries is necessary to meet the constitutional and statutory requirements for constituency formation.”
Welcoming the arrival of new voters from Tipperary, Deputy O’Dea said that many Limerick people moved out to the Newport area in recent times, so they would be familiar with the city representatives.
“However, the movement of two large sections out of the city still seems illogical as the Commission will just sit down and go on numbers and go on equalisation”
He said that under legislation, the Commission was obliged to take local factors into account in any redrawing of boundaries but, in this instance, “the commission doesn’t seem to have taken much of that into consideration.”
