Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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620. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the stage at which negotiations at European Union level on the reallocation of seats in the European Parliament following the Britain's decision to leave the European Union are at; if the reallocation of seats will be applicable for the 2019 European elections; if so, if additional seats will be allocated to Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5657/18]

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The composition of the current 2014-2019 European Parliament was established by European Council Decision 2013/312/EU of 28 June 2013 establishing the composition of the European Parliament which, in the case of Ireland, provided for the election of 11 MEPs. The current number of MEPs in the European Parliament is 750 plus the President with each Member State having between 6 and 96 Members respectively.

Council Decision 2013/312/EU provided that it would be revised again in advance of the 2019-2024 parliamentary term upon an initiative of the European Parliament to be presented before the end of 2016. The launch of this process was, however, postponed by the European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (i.e. the AFCO Committee) until after the referendum in the United Kingdom on its withdrawal from the European Union.

On 7 September 2017, a draft report on the composition of the European Parliament for 2019-2024 was published by the AFCO. This draft report was recently adopted, with some amendments, at a plenary meeting of the AFCO on 23 January 2018. In broad terms, the revised report adopted by AFCO proposes, among other things, that: –

­ when the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union becomes legally effective, 27 of the United Kingdom’s 73 seats would be re-distributed among 14 Member States of which 2 would go to Ireland, increasing Ireland’s MEPs from 11 to 13 in number. This would mean a reduction in the overall size of the European Parliament from 751 to 705 members;

- however, if the date on which the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union becomes legally effective takes place after the European Parliament elections are held in May/June 2019, the number of MEPs to be elected from each Member State for the 2019-2024 parliamentary term would remain the same as that of the current parliament. The additional seats would only be filled on the date after which the United Kingdom's withdrawal becomes legally effective.

My Department understands that the revised report will now be brought before a plenary of the European Parliament for its consideration on 7 February 2018 after which a proposal will be brought to Council for further consideration and formal decision in accordance with the European Union's decision making procedures.

In the event that Ireland’s total number of seats in the European Parliament is changed in respect of the 2019-2024 parliamentary term, it will be necessary to review our European constituency arrangements. Section 5(1A) of the Electoral Act 1997 makes provision for the establishment of a committee to make a report in relation to European Parliament constituencies. This was done in 2013 prior to the last elections to the European Parliament.