Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 149: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on the abolition of three seat local electoral area before the next local elections; if he will advocate for the elimination of three seat LEA; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26921/09]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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In January 2008, I announced that I had established 2 independent committees to review local electoral areas. The terms of reference which I gave the committees included a requirement that they recommend local electoral areas comprising of not less than 4 seats and not more than 7 seats, except in very exceptional circumstances where 3 seat local electoral areas could be recommended if, otherwise, the geographic size of the area would be disproportionately large.

In their reports, the committees recommended that a total of 3 local electoral areas should have 3 seats. When publishing the reports on 17 June 2008, I announced that I was accepting the recommendations of the committees and the local electoral areas proposed in the reports were in use at the recent local elections. The terms of reference of any future local electoral area boundary committees will be determined at the time of their establishment.