“THE POPULATION IS increasing at the rate of two TDs a year.”
This observation by Chairperson Marie Baker outlines one of the major challenges faced by The Electoral Commission as it sought to fairly redraw Ireland’s electoral map.
The Supreme Court Judge is of course not speaking literally, it’s not that there are two new TDs born every year, it’s that the number of TDs required per resident of the State is not keeping up with population growth.
Under Article 16.2 of the Constitution, there must be a TD for every 20,000-30,000 people. This ratio is calculated across the country as a whole but “so far as it is practicable”,it must be balanced across the country.
We’ll take a look at that second part a bit later, but for now let’s examine the first.
As of last year’s Census which recorded a population of just under 5.15 million, there is currently one TD for every 32,182 people.
That’s based on the 160 TDs we currently have and it’s clear that the figure is above the constitutional limit.
The Electoral Commission was given the remit of increasing the number of TDs within the range of 171 and 181 TDs. An increase of between 11 and 21.
In the it’s recommendation published today, the Commission decided not to go near the top of the range, in fact landing closer to the bottom end at 174 TDs, an increase of 14.
What’s curious about this decision is that, while it takes us back within the Constitutional limits, it does so by the width of a ballot paper.
If adopted, there would now be a TD for every29,593 people. Within the limits, but just about.
With Ireland’s population increasing by361,721 people from Census 2016 to Census 2022, it’s clear that the trendline puts us outside the limits again soon. Probably as soon as the next Census coming around.
So why didn’t the Commission recommend more TDs to avoid us having to do it all over again? After all, they had the freedom to go up to 181 TDs.
There are two main reasons. Firstly, they say, it wasn’t their role to “future-proof” what the map looks like.
In its 150-page report, the Commission says that it was “neither possible, nor appropriate” to attempt to predict how much the population will grow.
The Commission said it considered “public and media commentary” around the fact that increasing TDs to the higher end of the 171-181 range “was perceived as a means of ‘future-proofing’”
It added: “However, future-proofing is not one of the terms of reference.”
Put simply, the Commission feels it has done its job on the numbers to the letter, but no more.
Split decision
The second reason for not recommending a bigger increase was about what that would look like.
Asked by The Journal today why the Commission didn’t choose the higher end of TD increases, Baker said doing so would have “resulted in a vast amount of breaches of county boundaries.”
“It was in fact, quite chaotic,” she said.
The Commission said it took its cues from the Electoral Reform Act 2022 which laid down the terms of reference they had to work under. One of the terms was that “the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable”.
So even if having more TDs would have meant for a more future-proofed Dáil, it would also have meant greater fragmentation.
“Future-proofing is definitely a topic but it’s not part of our terms of reference,” Baker explained.
But it’s much more problematic than that. The population is increasing, if it continues at the current rate it’s increasing at the rate of two TDs a year. But the problem is, where?
“You might have said that 180 seats would have future-proofed, but we then had to allocate those seats. And because you don’t know where the increase is going to happen, you don’t know where to allocate the seats. It’s not a simple exercise of calculating how many we might need in five years’ time. It’s an exercise of how many we need now and where they go.”
In terms of where they go, that brings us back to the Constitutional requirement that the ratio of TDs to people has to be geographically“so far as it is practicable”.
What that means is that the national average one TD per 29,593 people mentioned earlier does not necessarily have to be met across every constituency. In fact, there are many constituencies where it does not.
Some areas are above that average and some are below. The Commission refers to this as ‘variance’ from the average.
Variance is always measured but it’s noteworthy that even with these changes the variance will now be greater in the next election than in any other election since 1980.
Generally speaking, a variance of 5% above or below the average has been considered a fair number but this is not backed up in law.
Under these changes however, there will be constituency variances in the next election of 8% both above and below the average, significantly the largest figure in most recent 10 elections.
Time to change
The figures demonstrate the constraints the Commission was working under and ultimately show that something has to give.
The options are changing the Constitution to allow a greater ratio of TDs per person or changing the law to allow six-seaters, perhaps allowing the constitutional ratio to be kept the same but giving those drawing the map more options.
“This is a big constitutional question,” says Baker.
“The Constitution says insofar as practicable, that there should be equality of representation. That recognises that mathematical parity isn’t either desirable or achievable, it’s certainly not achievable. We took the view that the way in which the Oireachtas, in the legislation, identifies the relevant factors, such as the preservation of countries boundaries, was the Oireachtas’ way of telling us hat practicable might mean.”
Asked if it would simply be better to change ratio, Baker confirmed that this is something the Commission will be working on next.
“It is a research topic we intend to engage in immediately, it would require constitutional change of course but it’s a research topic and I think we intend to start a discussion about it.”
A discussion perhaps that the Oireachtas must consider having too.
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