Leitrim people are organising a legal challenge to the Government's acceptance of the Constituency Commission's decision to split the county into separate constituencies. Marese McDonagh reports.
A fund-raising drive will begin at the first of a series of public meetings in the county, to be held in Ballinamore on Friday .
The Save Leitrim Campaign has estimated that it will cost 100,000 to mount the legal challenge.
It believes that it will be almost impossible for Leitrim, the county with the smallest population in the country, to return a TD if it is divided into two constituencies.
Public meetings will be held before Christmas at Ballinamore and Dromahair and further meetings are planned in the new year.
Mr Cormac Ó Súilleabháin, secretary of the campaign, said a fund-raising strategy would be drawn up in each electoral area.
"We will have a target for every parish in the county depending on its population and we will also be drawing up a list of possible donors in each area," he said.
Yesterday he wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, asking him to reconsider his decision not to meet the lobby group to discuss the implications of the commission's recommendations.
The Minister recently turned down a request for a meeting, saying it would not at this stage "serve any useful purpose".
Leitrim associations in New York, London and Manchester, are expected to hold fund-raising events in the coming months.
The Government's decision to accept the commission's recommendations means that Leitrim will be divided into two three-seater constituencies: Sligo-North Leitrim and Roscommon -South Leitrim.
An estimated 15,000 people in the county have signed a petition urging that the status quo be retained, with Leitrim remaining in the four-seater Sligo-Leitrim constituency.
Mr Ó Súilleabháin said that with Leitrim's population on the increase, people were angry at "this kick in the teeth".