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Abstract
On Thursday 30 May 2013 the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, issued the Local Electoral Area Boundary Report which redrew the constituency boundaries for the Irish local government elections scheduled to take place in May 2014. The report was drawn up by an independent commission, of which the author was a member, over a period of six months from December 2012 to May 2013 and presented to the minister who promptly published the committee's findings. The report entailed the largest redrawing of local electoral area boundaries since the foundation of the state and involved significant reductions in both the number of councils and councillors. This article presents an insider analytical account of the boundary committee's work and ultimate report. It discusses the place of local government in Irish politics, the political context in which the committee was established, the reform of local government structures by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government, and the ultimate redistricting of the boundaries. It also assesses the implications of the committee's report, and reactions to it, for both electoral integrity and electoral management in the Irish state.
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Notes
1. This quote is taken from the submission of the Association of Residents of Terenure to the 2013 Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee and can be seen on the Boundary Committee's website at http://www.boundarycommittee.ie/submissionsreceived/association%20of%20residents%20of%20terenure%20-%20dublin%20city.pdf. I would like to thank my fellow members of the Boundary Committee for their service to the state and the two anonymous referees for extremely helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
2. This was the subject of a lively debate between the author and Dr Aodh Quinlivan of the Department of Government at University College, Cork at a one day conference at UCC entitled – Sovereignty Regained: Has the bailout changed the Irish State? 4 April 2014.
4. http://www.thejournal.ie/councils-criticise-boundary-reform-931593-May2013/. The AMAI's comprehensive critique of Putting People First entitled Impact of the Action Programme for Effective Local Government on the Town Councils can be seen on their website at http://www.amai.ie/upload/fckimage/2139%20Impact%20of%20the%20Action%20Programme%2016pg_FA.pdf
5. Hogan is quoted at http://www.thejournal.ie/number-of-local-authorities-to-be-slashed-from-114-to-31-637272-Oct2012/
7. The members of the committee can be found at http://www.boundarycommittee.ie/background.htm
8. Noel Whelan, ‘Boundary revisions will have big impact on local government’, The Irish Times, 1 June 2013, available at: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/boundary-revisions-will-have-big-impact-on-local-government-1.1413674
9. Martin's comments can be seen at http://www.thejournal.ie/phil-hogan-gerrymandering-accusation-1375007-Mar2014/
10. See for instance my opinion piece ‘No case of boundary gerrymandering or manipulation’, Irish Examiner, 24 March 2014, available at http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/no-case-of-boundary-gerrymandering-or-manipulation-262964.html
11. See Richard Sinnott, John Coakley, James McBride, John O'Dowd, ‘Preliminary Study on the establishment of an Electoral Commission’, report presented to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, November 2008, available at: http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/Voting/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,19472,en.pdf
12. David Farrell ‘Ireland needs an Electoral Commission now!’, available at: http://politicalreform.ie/2013/07/05/ireland-needs-an-electoral-commission-now/