South Donegal voters should be returned to ‘natural’ constituency

Former Fianna Fáil and now Independent TD, Marc MacSharry has told the Electoral Commission that south Donegal, which forms part of his current Dáil constituency of Sligo Leitrim should be amalgamated back into its natural constituency and voting hinterland. 

He affirmed that Donegal should revert back to two 3-seat constituencies, a status that had existed and had previously been respected by all for decades.

MacSharry, who has long advocated the concept of county boundaries for Dail constituency demarcation lines made his comments as part of a personal submission to the Electoral Commission following increases in the population of Donegal, as part of the 2022 census. 

For the last two general elections, Bundoran, Ballyshannon, Ballintra and some arbitrary line near Laghey has enunciated that these towns were to be represented in the national parliament, invariably by a representative from outside the county, mainly because of the low Donegal population parameters within the wider Sligo Leitrim constituency.   

In his submission, the TD, who has been immersed in a number of political tete-a-tete’s over recent times said that the current make up, which also drags part of North Roscommon into the equation “serves to exacerbate the alienation of rural Ireland and undermines the constitutional entitlement of equal representation of all citizens in a practical, workable and cohesive way in Dail Éireann”.  

He goes on to say that because “sufficient practical considerations were not applied in the divisions of counties”, in this case four, “county boundaries were recklessly dissected rather than proactively and thoughtfully maintained”.

He also criticises the fact that geographic considerations and physical features were not given due regard under the previous electoral commission.

Referencing the Electoral Reform Act of 2022, he added: “The existence of mountains, rivers, difficult terrain and the blatant absence of adequate physical connectivity infrastructure in terms of road, rail and public transport would seem to have been completely ignored. 

Part of the MacSharry submission to the Electoral Commission

“It is, as if, the previous commission resolved to deal with these counties towards the end of the process and simply assembled an absurd ‘patch work’ constituency to facilitate an outcome which was neither required nor demanded by the constitutional criteria either in number of seats or ratio of seats to population.”    

He added that the making up the current Sligo Leitrim constituency involved four separate county councils, four planning authorities, housing departments, joint policing committees and two Garda divisions, which caused “significant practical difficulty” on many different levels. 

“The constituency as currently configured is approximately 120 kms long at its furthest points and 120 kms wide at its furthest point,” he pointed out.    

Retired teacher's remarkable recovery after kidney transplant and meningitis

'Better than winning the lotto' says Ray McGough

He submitted that Donegal should have two 3-seat constituencies, Sligo-Leitrim, a four seater constituency, with Roscommon/Longford also getting a four seat constituency. 

He concluded: “If the approach as taken in 2017 is allowed to continue it will inevitably lead within a few decades to a totally disproportionate level of representation in larger urban centres which could not have been envisaged at the time the constitution was written nor would it be in keeping with the explicit ambitions of the constitution when considered in its entirety.”