Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The redrawing of boundaries for Dáil constituencies is an issue that can give rise to significant grievances and protests, but it is a necessary part of a political process that takes account of constitutional requirements and census results. I was only two years old when the most infamous changes to Dáil constituencies took place in 1977 and the term "Tullymander" entered the Irish political vocabulary. The result of that episode, as well as one or two others, is that any change to electoral boundaries must be overseen by an explicitly independent authority. It is a fundamental feature of our democracy that the Constituency Commission is defined by law and is unfettered in its operations and activities.

Any citizen in any constituency can make a submission to the commission on his views and opinions of its task. The current commission received more than 530 submissions, a substantial increase from 99 in 2004 and 335 in 2007. Furthermore, four out every five submissions were from a non-party-political person or organisation, thereby demonstrating an increasing and welcome engagement with politics among citizens.

It is testament to the Government's commitment to transparency and fairness that the Electoral (Amendment) (Dáil Constituencies) Bill 2012 has been introduced speedily in order to legislate for the commission's findings.

The Bill also contains measures which meet commitments given by the Government to reduce the number of Deputies to 158 and the number of constituencies to 40. These measures will save over €2 million and are broadly welcome.

What are of more concern are the proposed changes to the constituencies. The commission worked on the basis of avoiding the breaching of county boundaries as far as practicable. As a result there was a false sense of security that constituencies, with one or two exceptions, would, more or less, adhere to county boundaries. It should be emphasised that county boundaries are recognised boundaries which have remained the same for centuries. However, the numbers failed to stack up, particularly in certain regions and most notably in the west. In a statement which caused trepidation in some quarters, the commission declared that an arrangement of constituencies based exclusively on county boundaries was not feasible. Breaches in county boundaries already in existence in constituencies, including in Carlow, Clare, Meath and Westmeath, will now be joined by new breaches in Cavan, Donegal, Galway, Kildare, Mayo and Tipperary.

While I respect the decisions of the constituency commission and defend strongly its independence and impartiality, I appreciate the difficulties facing it in taking on board the constitutional and legislative requirements regarding Dáil representation and the number of Deputies. Nonetheless, I must express reservations regarding the abundance of county boundary breaches. It seems in the west and north west that in order to reunite the county of Leitrim, we are carving up counties across the region, including Cavan, Donegal, Mayo, Roscommon and Galway. My fear is that such large scale breaches in county boundaries will result in isolation and alienation from the national, political process and discourage political participation and voter turnout. It could be said that sufficient consideration has not been given to these consequences, because they are not a factor for Dublin or other major population centres.

In my constituency, the commission's proposals will see a total of nine electoral divisions of Mayo and will include the transfer of Neale, Cong, Shrule, Garrymore and Ballinrobe to Galway West. The people of these areas are rightly proud of their Mayo roots, a county with its own newspapers, radio stations, county council, community organisations, sporting teams and so on. I appreciate their fears that their voice will somehow be drowned out by the influence of or focus on Galway, the larger county in the new configuration. I wish to assuage these concerns and pledge that as a Deputy I will represent the citizens of south Mayo to the best of my ability, if elected in the new Galway West-Southeast Mayo constituency. I will work for them, as I currently do for the citizens of Galway West.

That said, I believe the situation whereby this area of Mayo is lumped in with a larger Galway West gives rise to huge concern that the voice of the people of that part of Mayo will be drowned out in this new configuration. If the commission had looked at the map, it might have noticed that the town of Headford, which is in Galway East, remains in Galway East although there is a large connection between south Mayo and Headford. Therefore, if the commission had looked properly at the maps, it could have come up with a fairer configuration.

The Government must take action to ensure a smooth introduction of the proposed changes, by outlining, as soon as possible, the names of the new constituencies - if there are to be further changes from the document we have received - to better reflect the new configurations. It should also conduct an information campaign on the upcoming changes so that all citizens know who their representatives are in the national Parliament.

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