On Tuesday of this week, a little after 2pm, the Constituency Commission published their report on General Election boundary revisions. I had a lot of opinions once I looked at it, but I wanted to take a couple of days to mull them over before I posted up here. The big question is whether they hurt Labour, or helped us. I’d suggest they have hurt us a little more than they helped us, but overall, we’ve emerged OK.
Firstly, the bad news. I’d imagine Dominic Hannigan is quite rightly upset about the movement of over 16,000 people from Meath East to Louth. There were some strange changes made during this revision, but this is probably the strangest. Essentially, all of Dominic’s area has been moved into Louth, leaving both himself and Cllr. Ged Nash as potential GE candidates for us in the southern end of Louth. In a knock-on effect, our candidate in Meath West, Cllr. Brian Collins, now finds himself in Meath East, as Kells was moved from one constituency to the other. So, instead of having three excellent candidates in three constituencies, we now find ourselves with three excellent candidates in two constituencies, with nobody in Meath West. Very disappointing for the party, but the silver lining is that we now look exceptionally strong in Louth (which seems likely to elect Dermot Ahern and Arthur Morgan from the Dundalk end of the constituency, and Seamas Kirk and two additional seats from the Southern end).
In Dublin, the news was more mixed for the party. Speaking selfishly, I was delighted that Dublin North-Central still exists as a constituency, with the left-leaning Edenmore moved back into the constituency (though one has to question what continuity of representation the people of Edenmore are getting, as the last revision saw them moved from North-Central to North-East, and now they’ve been moved back). While the loss of Edenmore would have been disappointing to Tommy Broughan in Dublin North-East, it will damage Sinn Féin more in that constituency. Of more concern to Tommy will be the addition of Portmarnock and surrounding areas to his constituency – areas that traditionally have a very high Fine Gael vote. Dublin North-West, Dublin Central, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin South-West and Dublin South-Central remain unchanged, and that’s probably good news for Labour, who hold seats in all of these constituencies, with Eric Byrne now having a great chance to have another go in 2012. The loss of the Foxrock area from Dun Laoghaire won’t upset Eamon Gilmore too much, though it almost certainly puts paid to any chance of a second seat for Labour in that constituency. Better news is that Dublin South retains five seats, which gives Alex White a great chance of taking a Dáil seat next time out. Finally for Dublin, Joan Burton will be relieved that an extra seat has been added to Dublin West, but the decision to divide Swords between Dublin West and Dublin North is a bizarre one, which may well damage our chances of taking back a seat in Dublin North (I haven’t seen tally figures for the Swords area from the last GE, so I’m not entirely sure how this will affect us).
Wicklow remains unchanged, which is good for us, though Carlow will be disappointed that the section of the county which sits in the Wicklow constituency was not returned to them. Carlow-Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford are also unchanged, and that’s good news for us too. We’ll be aiming to take four, if not five, seats from those four constituencies next time out. Most of the changes in the Midlands were tinkering – bits of Tipp South moved into Tipp North, which also took a chunk of Offaly (this constituency commission seem to have decided to throw county boundaries all over the place). Tipp South still looks OK for us, but Tipp North is now possibly a little more conservative than it was, which will toughen the task for Alan Kelly in his first public election. Willie Penrose has lost a bit of territory north of Mullingar into Meath West, but I’d certainly expect him to still comfortably hold his seat, and probably take a running mate on board too. Cavan-Monaghan remains unchanged.
Moving further west, the people of Leitrim will be utterly disgusted. The majority of all submissions to the constituency commission were from Leitrim people, disgusted at their lack of representation in the Dáil. The commission have done possibly the only thing that could have made things worse for Leitrim people. They have more evenly split Leitrim between two constituencies, meaning that neither constituency has a quota of Leitrim people, and their complete lack of representation in Dáil Éireann seems set to continue. Galway East and West and Mayo remain unchanged, while there are adjustments between the two Donegal constituencies, though I would expect things to stay pretty much as they stand. Clare also remains unchanged.
The South-West has some of the strangest boundary revisions in the country. Taking Cork firstly, South-Central and South-West remain unchanged, and I’m pretty sure Michael McCarthy will be happy about that, even though it still leaves him with an enormous constituency. Cork North-Central meanwhile, has expanded into both Cork North-West and Cork East. Cork North-West hasn’t exactly been a bastion of Labour strength recently, so Kathleen Lynch may be a little disappointed by the addition of some of that area into hers. But she’ll be less concerned about the addition of some of Cork East, where Sean Sherlock was recently elected, while John Mulvihill also performed well. Meanwhile, Sherlock will be delighted that his core area of Mallow remains in his home turf.
Kerry South have kept their three seats (this will be a two-seat election next time due to the automatic returning of Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue), taking in an extra 5,098 population from Kerry North (Castleisland, Cordal and Kilgobban being the areas on the move). Despite the extra territory, returning a Labour deputy in a two-seat race will be an enormous ask. Kerry North have in turn taken a chunk of 13,146 from Limerick West, to create the new three seat constituency of Kerry North-West Limerick. This is extremely conservative territory, and again a gain will be a big ask, particularly in light of Terry O’Brien’s decision not to contest the next General Election for Labour. The remainder of Limerick has been split essentially into one urban four-seat constituency (to be known as Limerick City, incorporating the city and surrounding environs), and one rural three-seat constituency (to be known simply as Limerick). The loss of a seat in the Limerick City area (what was Limerick East), will put Jan O’Sullivan under a little pressure, but she should still be fairly comfortable. Meanwhile, the new Limerick constituency looks a challenging one for James Heffernan, but after his respectable performance in his first outing this summer, I have great faith that he can build a vote in this constituency.
So, that’s my view of the country. Looking at the overall picture, I don’t think any of our sitting TDs will find themselves unduly pressured next time out. The tougher challenge lies for our sitting Senators and new candidates. For the Senators, Dominic Hannigan will need to sit down with Ged Nash and decide which of them will run in newly-expanded Louth. Alan Kelly will have to deal with a new, conservative part of Offaly in his constituency, while Brendan Ryan will have to deal with the loss of half of Swords to Dublin West. Phil Prendergast doesn’t have too many changes, and in particular her home patch of Clonmel is untouched by the revisions. Alex White will have to try to appeal to the Foxrock voters who are new to his constituency, but I think he’s up for any such challenge. In the other areas, our challenge is now to get out and select our new candidates, and give them a full run in to the next election.
