A North Dublin Fianna Fáil TD has asked the Minister for the Environment to re-examine a proposal to split the town of Swords for election purposes, claiming the move would be “short sighted”.
Michael Kennedy, one of two Fianna Fáil TDs in the four-seater North Dublin constituency, was speaking in the Dáil during the second stage of the Electoral Amendment Bill 2008.
Mr Kennedy said he was not criticising the Constituency Commission, which made the proposals to redraw the electoral boundaries.
“I acknowledge the reasons for this proposal and I am in no way criticising the commission itself, as it is acting independently and with no agenda. I do, however, believe it to be short-sighted in some of its recommendations.”
“In a bid to readdress the balance among constituencies, the Commission has undertaken what appears to be a slash-and-burn plan; arbitrarily hacking apart constituencies, adding a portion of one constituency to another.”
Mr Kennedy said this “slapdash” approach would no doubt satisfy the constitutional requirement that there be at least one TD per 30,000 of the population. But he said it was “ripping apart communities and disenfranchising thousands of people”.
“The plan as it stands is to literally split Swords down the Main Street with everyone to the west of the street voting in Dublin West and everyone else remaining in Dublin North.”
Mr Kennedy also said the proposal to remove Dublin airport from the consituency and move it to Dublin West was “ludicrous”.
He asked the Minister to examine recommendations made by a local lobby group and to reexamine the proposal to split the town into two constituencies.
Mr Kennedy and fellow Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien were both elected to the Dáil for the first time in the 2007 general election. The other two seats in the constituency are held by Fine Gael’s Dr James Reilly and Trevor Sargent of the Green Party.
The controversial plan to move about 13,000 people out of Swords into Dublin West was published in the Constituency Commission’s report last year.
It recommended that Dublin West, as the constituency with the largest variance from the national average representation, be allocated an extra seat to make it a four-seater.
Under the proposals, Louth would also gain a seat to make it a five-seat constituency. Dun Laoghaire in south Dublin and Limerick East would each would lose one of their five seats.
The commission also recommended changes to 20 other constituencies.