Election boundary change ‘will hit smaller parties’
THE size of local election areas is to be reduced in a move that could squeeze out smaller parties and independents in many parts of the country.
A memo to be brought to Cabinet this week seeks to begin a process of reducing the territorial size of local election areas in time for 2019.
Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy will request that the Government sanctions two ‘Boundary Committees’ to review electoral areas.
At the 2014 local elections, 949 councillors were elected in 137 local electoral areas to 31 local authorities.
The proposal to reduce the size of electoral areas could suit larger parties who are capable of running several candidates in order to build up transfers.
“The net effect of this could be to squeeze out Independents,” said one senior political source.
The Programme for Government agreed by Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance says the coalition will “consider reducing the size of local electoral areas”, but doesn’t give a commitment to doing so.
In the memo being brought to Cabinet, Mr Murphy proposes one committee be established to make recommendations concerning the division of each county and city council into local electoral areas and on the number of public representatives needed in each area.
A second committee is to look specifically at Cork, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Galway, Fingal and South Dublin.
The membership of the committees will be made up of former civil/public servants and relevant academics. It will then be up to the minister to decide on what changes to make.
A similar process was put in place before the 2014 local elections with a boundary review established in November 2012.
The changes saw the number of public representatives reduced by 700 and led to a major row between Fianna Fáil and then-environment minister Phil Hogan.