McHugh's Miscellany: Time to stop the Donegal constituency claptrap

People living in the current five seater Donegal Dáil constituency may not be too perturbed about their brothers and sisters in the very south of the county, but what has been happening there over recent years is nothing short of a total political abomination. 

These same Donegal GAA fans may have been seated beside you in the green and gold geansaí last Sunday in Ballybofey, but it is their TDs with the Sligo black and white geansaí’s, the blue and gold of Roscommon or another shade of our own geansaí in Leitrim, who represents them in our national parliament. 

It’s an absolute scandal that goes to the very heart and soul of political accountability as well as equal and fair representation for them in the big parliamentary ‘seomraí’ located in Pale headquarters. 

For, about 8,000 such Donegal voters for the last two General elections have been cast aside like an unwanted toy to another county or counties. 

Don’t misjudge me on my absolute unequivocal delight, pride and joy of both Sligo and leitrim, as with their equally capable political representatives. 

But would you expect a person from south Donegal, for example, to be telling the people of Sligo Town or Carrick-on-Shannon what is best for them and telling them that as a person from south Donegal, they have your interests at heart when it comes to extracting the most from the government round table?  

And despite the fact that as much as you may get browned off with the political system, it is the only one we have at present. 

The anomaly came knocking on the door this week, yet again, when Sligo based Deputy Marc MacSharry, in his normal understated way, called upon the Electoral Commission to explain and elucidate their rationale of cobbling together a “patchwork” of counties to make up some magic number for a TD to leg it up to the Big Smoke. 

The people of Ballyshannon have not been able to vote in a Donegal based constituency since 2011 after the old Donegal south west constituency was abolished for the General election of 2016

He pointed out that his constituency swarmed across four county council areas and the equivalent number of planning authorities, as well as two garda divisions. 

It can’t be personal as he pulled a good chunk of first preferences from that neck of the woods in south Donegal back in February of 2020. 

And what makes the make up all the more farcical - and it is a 100% full blooded farce - is that in the previous general election back in 2016, parts of Roscommon were not in the pretend potpourri constituency but rather west Cavan. 

Certainly a stench of putrid permeates the air on this one rather than a garden of fragrance. 

And the other thing I might add is that the status quo will not deviate unless people get up off their backsides on this. 

Leitrim was having none of it when they were sliced in half by the same electoral commission just a couple of elections ago. 

Currently parts of south Donegal are grouped in with Sligo, Leitrim and North Roscommon as a four seat Dáil Éireann constituency 

They saw red and acted decisively and collectively when their county came under threat in their own version of an Alice in Wonderland political carve up. 

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We need the same approach here in Donegal or else we may just as well hand everything south of the Ballintra river to Leitrim or even offer it to the people of Fermanagh, who might just appreciate and defend it, a bit more respectably.