Dáil numbers set for a shake-up following census results

• Published date: 24 June 2022
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

With more than 5.1 million people living in the State there will have to be at least 171 TDs in the next Dáil to comply with a constitutional requirement to have at least one deputy for every 30,000 people

Political parties are already combing over the preliminary census results in a bid to gain insight into possible changes for the next election.

Redrawing constituency boundaries always has the potential to be highly controversial. A redraw can make or break the election hopes of candidates who can suddenly find they'll gain a chunk of votes from a supportive community — or just as easily lose them.

Ahead of the last general election, Fine Gael's Noel Rock said he lost 20 per cent of his voters "at the stroke of a pen" after a boundary redraw. He went on to lose his Dublin North-West seat in 2020.

Attempts to try to keep constituencies roughly at 30,000 people per TD can also throw up strange geographic anomalies.

One example is the "Frankenstein" Sligo-Leitrim constituency that includes part of Donegal and Roscommon (and previously incorporated some of Cavan).

The yet-to-be passed Electoral Reform Bill sets out the parameters for the new commission's constituency reviews.

The next Dáil can have up to 179 TDs and each constituency can have three, four or five TDs. The breaching of county boundaries is to be avoided "as far as practicable".

With the final census results due in April 2023, the Electoral Commission's constituency reports for the Dáil and European Parliament are expected around July 2023. After that, it will be a matter for the Oireachtas to legislate for revised constituency boundaries.

Dr Adrian Kavanagh of Maynooth University's Department of Geography expects a decision will be taken to increase Dáil numbers from 160 to...