Broad welcome in south Tipperary for recommendation to split county into 2 Dáil constituencies

The Electoral Commission's recommendation that Tipperary be re-divided into two three-seater Dáil constituencies has received a broad welcome from politicians in the south of the county. 

The Commission’s 2023 Constituency Review Report, published last week, recommends that Tipperary revert to being divided into South and North Tipperary constituencies for Dáil elections.

The recommendation has been widely welcomed in the south of the county, which effectively lost a seat under the amalgamation into a single five-seater all county constituency in 2016.

Since then, there have only been two south Tipperary based TDs where previously under the old South Tipperary constituency there were three TDs.

Former Clonmel-based Independent TD Seamus Healy has confirmed he will contest the next Dáil election in the wake of the Electoral Commission’s recommendation that Tipperary be split once again into South and North Tipperary constituencies. 

When Mr Healy, the founder of the left-wing Workers & Unemployment Action Group, lost his Dáil seat in the 2020 general election, many thought that was the end of his career in politics.

He is now 73-years-old but age isn’t deterring him from running for the Dáil again. He is still very active doing constituency work as a WUAG activist and was prominently involved in the Save St Brigid’s Hospital campaign in Carrick-on-Suir.

Mr Healy, who served as a TD between 2000 and 2007 and 2011 and 2020, welcomed the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to restore the South and North Tipperary constituencies.

“I think it’s reflective of the situation on the ground in terms of population. I would have expected a small bit of Waterford around Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir to be brought into (South Tipperary) but it hasn’t happened.”

He says the unification of south and north Tipperary into a single Dáil constituency and local authority has been disastrous for south Tipperary, which he now believes is playing “second fiddle” to north Tipperary.

Meanwhile, there is speculation that Independent Cllr Andy Molony from Poulmucka near Cahir has been approached about running in the next general election. He topped the poll in the Cahir Electoral Area in the 2019 elections, securing 27.7% of the vote. When contacted by The Nationalist, he would only say that his focus is on next year’s local elections.

Cllr Moloney did, however, welcome the Election Commission’s recommendation to divide the county again into South and North Tipperary Dáil constituencies. “It’s a huge county of 115 miles in length. It’s too big to have as one constituency,” he said.

Fine Gael was one of the biggest losers out of the unification of the county into a single Dáil constituency.

The party’s last two Tipperary TDs, former Minister of State Tom Hayes and Noel Coonan lost their seats in the 2016 election, the first held after the amalgamation. Fine Gael failed to win a seat in 2020.

The redivision of the county into two constituencies will be a boost to a south based Fine Gael candidate, which is most likely to be Senator Garret Ahearn, who is currently the only government party Oireachtas member living in the south of the county.

A huge majority of Fine Gael’s votes are in the south of the county.

This alongside the removal of Lowry as a candidate running in the south means many south based traditional FG voters who gave their first preference vote to the Holycross TD, will now likely transfer them back to the south’s FG candidate.

Senator Ahearn said the re-division of the county is generally welcomed by voters in south Tipperary and it makes it more manageable for TDs to represent constituents as the county is too big.

“I think it’s a good thing that the county is being split back into North and South constituencies.

“People you speak to in the county prefer that. Even when the Dáil constituencies were amalgamated people still saw the county as two constituencies. From a management perspective for all public representatives it makes more sense.”

The Fine Gael party’s Dáil candidate selection convention for Tipperary will be convened next year. Senator Ahearn expects the party to run one candidate in the south and one in the north.

The north based candidate is likely to be a woman as the political parties are required to meet a gender quota of 40% female candidates.

He pointed out that south based voters who would have gone to TDs like Michael Lowry, Jackie Cahill and Alan Kelly for help will feel “slightly disconnected” in the weeks and months ahead. He said he had constituency offices in Clonmel and Cahir and he was ready to help them.

Cllr Imelda Goldsboro, a Fianna Fáil candidate in the 2020 election, is relieved her home community of Ballingarry is included in the Electoral Commission’s recommended South Tipperary constituency.

She confesses she was apprehensive it would be moved in to the North Tipp constituency as happened previously. She was disappointed that part of Kilkenny close to Ballingarry is being moved into North Tipperary rather than South Tipperary.

Like the other politicians The Nationalist interviewed, she welcomes the recommendation to split Tipperary into two constituencies again because the county is too big. She points out it is quicker to travel to Dublin than travel between Carrick-on-Suir and Newport at either end of the county.

Cllr Goldsboro says Fianna Fáil will have to reform its South Tipperary Comhairle Dáil Ceantair to select a Dáil candidate for the new constituency.

When asked if she will seek a nomination to contest the next election, she responded that she would be very interested in putting forward her name. But she stressed there was a lot of different angles and a number of challenges she had to consider before deciding to seek the party’s nomination.

She points out that the area she represents stretching from Ballingarry to Carrick-on-Suir is a large area that hasn’t a resident TD.

In a statement, Cashel based Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne said it was unfortunate that numerous parts of the south of the county in which he and the Sinn Féin team had made great progress will now be in North Tipperary.

However, he said Tipperary Sinn Féin was proud that it has been working “incredibly hard” across Tipperary, both north and south, and this work will continue.

“As a Sinn Féin TD for Tipperary, I have worked closely with all my colleagues throughout the county to address the issues that people come to me seeking a resolution to.

“Despite the redrawing of the constituency, that co-operation will continue, because it is in the interests of the people that we as a party represent, which will now include the people from the northwest of Kilkenny.

He said Sinn Féin will now proceed to identify a general election candidate for North Tipperary.

“In the South of the county, my approach remains the same – to represent the needs of the people who are continuing to face increased costs of living alongside the consequences of poor governance under successive FF/FG governments.  The people have always been my focus, and the redrawing of the constituency does not change that.”