Proposal to reduce Dáil to 146 seats

Seán Donnelly has done some number crunching on Enda Kenny's proposal to reduce the size of the Dáil by 20 seats from the current 166. If this smaller Dáil had been introduced at the 2007 election, keeping the existing constituency boundaries, the effect would have been as follows:

These five seat constituencies would have been reduced to four seats (affected party in brackets):

• Carlow Kilkenny (FF)
• Cavan Monaghan (FF)
• Cork South Central (FG)
• Dublin South (FG)
• Dublin South Central (SF)
• Dun Laoghaire (GP)
• Galway West (FF)
• Mayo (FG)
• Wicklow (FG)

These four seat constituencies would have been reduced to three seats (affected party in brackets):

• Cork North Central (FF)
• Dublin Central (FF)
• Dublin Mid West (LB)
• Dublin North (FF)
• Dublin South East (GP)
• Dublin South West (FF)
• Galway East (FF)
• Kildare North (FG)
• Waterford (FF)

One five seat constituencies would have been reduced to three seats (affected party in brackets):

• Limerick East (FF,FG)

This represents a loss of ten seats for Fianna Fáil, six for Fine Gael, two for the Greens, and one each for Labour and Sinn Fein.

The would have given the government parties (FF, GP, PD) 74 seats and the opposition (FG, LB, SF, Independents) 72 seats. This compares with the actual result of 86 to 80. If the Ceann Comhairle was taken from FF, the Government would have ended up with a majority of one, although one assumes it would still have had some independents supporting it.

The Fine Gael gain in the Dublin South by election may have led to some interesting possibilities in the Dáil arithmetic!

However, any decision to reduce the size of the Dáil would have been accompanied by a Boundary Commission. The projection above is based on 28 three seat constituenices - generally smaller constituencies favour the bigger parties - and only two five seat constituencies. It's also interesting that the seats affected above are overwhelmingly urban or the Greater Dublin area. The only exceptions are Mayo, Cavan Monaghan and Galway East (possibly Carlow Kilkenny - still Leinster).