Constituency review still grossly unfair to Donegal claims Aontú's Mary T Sweeney

The latest review of constituencies has changed nothing in the grossly unfair under-representation of Donegal, says Mary T Sweeney of Aontú.

The Letterkenny-based advocate claims that in the last general election, a vote in Donegal was only worth half of a vote in Dublin Central and this unfairness will not be cured by the recent constituency review.

She claims the Electoral Commission was given no mandate to even discuss why this unfairness arises.

"Dublin Central had a quota of 6,288 as opposed to 12,909 in Donegal. Votes per seat were 7, 860 compared to 15,490 and registered voters per seat 15,500 compared to 25,180. This gives the citizen’s vote in Donegal about half of the value of the citizen’s vote in Dublin Central.

"Even when we take the less extreme regional numbers, a rough calculation shows that the rest of the country would have needed 22 extra TDs to have equality of representation with Dublin. All this in spite of a nominally equal distribution of seats based on population.

"We currently have the situation where Paschal Donohue, elected with fewer votes than two unsuccessful candidates in Donegal, has had control of Finance and Public Expenditure, departments whose unwise penny-pinching caused the Defective Blocks disaster in the first place and which continue to cavil and delay on the full 100% redress justly needed by the victims of their failure."

She added it they believed in equal representation of all citizens, then there is a clear and urgent need for reform.

"It is clear that distribution of seats based purely on population, which was fine 86 years ago, no longer achieves equal parliamentary representation for all citizens and we need to discuss how we can achieve a more representative system, preferably in an open discussion and not in one guided by the interests of a limited number of parties or other interest groups.

"The national media might be uninterested and this might be low on the priorities of those (Mary-Lou, Leo, Eamonn Ryan, Ivanna Bacik) elected in the most over-represented constituencies but there is no excuse for our own local TDs and public representatives.

"As a member of a new, growing party, the probable carve-up of constituencies with these extra seats would not be to my party’s advantage but it is incumbent on all, especially all our elected representatives, to put fairness for Donegal above party.

“I call on all our TDs to make clear, concrete commitments on what they are going to do to give Donegal its rightful voice before the next general election,” she added.