Constituency Review Submission from Cllr Ian Carey
Cllr Ian Carey
Submission ID: S18
Date
21/03/2023
Constituency
Dublin Fingal, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Dublin West, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin North-West, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin Central
| From: | Cllr Ian Carey |
| Sent: | Tuesday 21 March 2023 16:13 |
| To: | ELC ConstituencyReview |
| Subject: | Submission in relation to the Dáil and European Constituency Review |
Please accept the following as my submission to the Dáil and European Constuency review.
1. Preserve the county boundaries in Dublin as much as possible. As a local representative, my area includes a number of locations which are inside the Fingal county boundary but for the Dáil elections are part of a separate Dublin constituency. The feeling among those communities is that they experience poorer public representation on both at local and national levels. This is likely for a number of reasons, including representatives at national level being less likely to engage effectively with more than one local authority and the link between national and local level politicians being weaker in these areas. This leads to certain places feeling forgotten. The most effective way to deal with these issues is to align the Dáil constituencies with county boundaries as much as possible and preserve a more permanent and coherent link between local and national level politics. I know an exception has been made for Dublin constituencies in the guidance relating to county boundaries but I think given the experience of communities that cross county and Dáil boundaries the gravity should always be towards preserving the county boundary, even in Dublin.
2. Futureproof constituency decisions in Fingal. Fingal, and particularly towns such as Swords, are planned under the National Planning Framework and the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy to grow substantially in the next decades. It would be better if the boundary realignments took account of the likely continued growth in towns such as Swords so that future reviews could deal with the increased population on by increasing seats as opposed to redrawing boundaries.
Many thanks,
Ian
Cllr Ian Carey / Swords