The first statutory Constituency Commission, which reviews Dail and European Parliament constituencies, is expected to produce proposals on redrawing parliamentary boundaries within six months.
The Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, yesterday made an order setting up the constituency commission for the first time on a statutory basis.
Under the 1997 Electoral Act the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, has nominated Mr Justice Johnson to act as chairman of the commission. The other commission members are, the Ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy; the secretary general of the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Mr Jimmy Farrelly; the Clerk of the Dail, Mr Kieran Coughlan, and the Clerk of the Seanad, Ms Deirdre Lane.
The terms of reference of the new commission are similar to the previous non-statutory Dail and European constituency revisions. It will examine population changes recorded in the 1996 Census - as published by the Central Statistics Office - and determine how each of the State's 41 Dail constituencies and the four European constituencies might be redrawn.