The establishment of Ireland’s first Electoral Commission could mean changes politically for Tipperary.
The new group has been tasked with carrying out a review of all Dáil and European Parliament Constituencies following the provisional results of Census 2022 which may result in boundary changes or changes to the number of TDs in an area.
Electoral laws mean the Commission cannot recommend a 6 seat constituency, posing a challenge for Tipperary as each local TD currently has 32,597 constituents based on the data- exceeding the 30,000 cap meaning Tipperary hasn’t enough TDs for the population of 162,987.
Brian Dawson is the Communications and Public Engagement Manager for the Commission and says the number of TDs nationally needs to increase significantly however, the laws make this a mathematical challenge.
“The constitution actually provides that there needs to be one TD to represent between every 20 to 30,000 people. So you know that is a very important ratio to keep in mind and most constituencies have gone above that 30,000 including Tipperary -what we are looking at now is how to bring that back in line with the constitutional criteria the Oireachtas have directed us that there should be between 171 and 181 TDs. At the very lowest level we are looking at 11 new TDs.”
Brian Dawson also says that they need to get public input to ensure that their recommendations reflect what the people of Tipperary want to see.
“There will be winners and losers politically in terms of where lines may be drawn on the map. Our criteria is the constitution in the first instance and also the electoral acts that we have been given very clear criteria of and what we need to do. One of the things we are asking we have until May 10th,a week today, for people to make submissions to us directly about where they may have concerns or recommendations to us about how we might carry out this constituency review.”
Submissions can be made on www.electoralcommission.ie
