Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 July 2016
209. Deputy Pat Deering asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government with reference to the establishment of the commission to review Dáil and European constituencies, if the commission will review constituency boundaries taking into account county boundaries; the other criteria that will be used by the commission in examining this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23213/16]
View answerIn accordance with section 5 of the Electoral Act 1997 I established a Constituency Commission on 14 July 2016, following the publication by the Central Statistics Office of the preliminary results of Census 2016. The function of the Commission is to make a report on the constituencies for the election of members of Dáil Éireann and of the European Parliament having regard to Article 16 of the Constitution and to the terms of reference set out in section 6(2) of the Electoral Act 1997.
Section 6(2) of the Electoral Act 1997, as amended, provides that, in preparing a report in relation to the constituencies for the election of members to the Dáil, a Constituency Commission shall, in observing the relevant provisions of the Constitution in relation to Dáil constituencies, have regard to the following:
(a) the total number of members of the Dáil, subject to Article 16.2.2 of the Constitution, shall be not less than 153 and not more than 160;
(b) each constituency shall return 3, 4 or 5 members;
(c) the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable and this reference to county boundaries is deemed not to include a reference to a boundary of a city or any boundary between any two of the counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin;
(d) each constituency shall be composed of contiguous areas;
(e) there shall be regard to geographic considerations including significant physical features and the extent of and the density of population in each constituency; and
(f) subject to the provisions of this section, the Commission shall endeavour to maintain continuity in relation to the arrangement of constituencies.
The requirements at (b) to (f) also apply to the review of constituencies for the election of members of the European Parliament and there must also be reasonable equality of representation as between those constituencies.
