Why 9,000+ of Donegal’s population must vote in Sligo/Leitrim Dáil elections 

The following rationale has been proffered by the Electoral Commission to justify the continuing inclusion of parts of south Donegal into the Dáil constituency of Sligo Leitrim, as opposed to giving its a singular county boundary or two three seater constituencies, must like what existed before 2016. 

The Donegal constituency has a population of 157,700, as of 2022, an increase of 4.67% on the previous census 2016. The constituency currently comprises the county of Donegal, except for nine EDs in the south of the county, with a population of 9,384. 

In their report issued today, they state: 

“These nine EDs are located in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency. The main consideration by the Commission regarding the Donegal constituency was the removal of the breach in the southern part of the county. 

“This issue was raised in many submissions relating to this constituency. Some submissions

suggested retaining Donegal as a 5 seat constituency, although more suggested creating two 3 seat constituencies.

"The Commission considered the removal of the county boundary breach by transferring the nine Co. Donegal EDs, currently in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency into the Donegal 5 seat constituency.

"However, the Commission concluded that this was not possible, as adding this population would have resulted in an unacceptably high variance of 12.92%.

"The Commission also considered the possibility of creating two 3 seat constituencies in Co. Donegal, as a way of removing the existing county boundary breach. However, such a transfer would have precluded the removal of the county boundary breach in northern Co. Roscommon, the reduction in the county boundary breach in the eastern part of Co. Galway and the removal of the breach of the Mayo county boundary.

“The Commission also considered extending the breach by transferring four EDs with a population of 1,356 into the Sligo-Leitrim constituency. This would have allowed for better variances in the Donegal and Sligo-Leitrim constituencies.

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"However, the Commission decided against this approach as it favoured maintaining continuity, and did not want to extend the breach unnecessarily.

A key factor is that Co. Donegal is only contiguous with one other county – Leitrim. This tended to constrain the possible options open to the Commission.”