BREAKING: South Donegal again discommoded by Electoral Commission

Ireland’s Independent Electoral Commission has published its recommendations on Ireland’s Dáil and European Parliament Constituency Review 2023, with Donegal being left out in the cold again, when it comes to proper county boundary inclusion in Dail Eireann.

It does not include the return of two constituencies in Donegal, meaning thousands of voters in the south of the county will not be able to vote exclusively for Donegal based candidates for Dail Éireann, as the maths of a Donegal based candidate being successful are short of slim. The rest of the county will remain a single five seater constituency.

The constituency of Sligo-Leitrim, less EDs transferred to the constituency of Roscommon Galway, remains a 4 seat constituency, it has just been revealed.

The report said:

“The entire population of the counties of Mayo and Roscommon would now be within each of their own constituencies. The Commission is also able to recommend a reduced number of Co. Galway Electoral Divisions (EDs) that are in the Roscommon Galway constituency.

“However, it was not able to remove the breach of the Co. Donegal boundary by the Sligo-Leitrim constituency.”

It has been seven years since all the population of Donegal south west have been able to vote as a single entity, when it was a three seat constituency.

It was previously abolished at the 2016 general election, and became part of the re-created single five seat Donegal constituency, but significantly the towns of Bundoran and Ballyshannon, as well as Rossnowlagh and Ballintra were not included.

This meant that  the electoral divisions of Ballintra, Ballyshannon Rural, Ballyshannon Urban, Bundoran Rural, Carrickboy, Cavangarden, Cliff, in the former Rural District of Ballyshannon; Ballintra in the former Rural District of Donegal and Bundoran Urban were all amalgamated into the province of Connacht in the four seater Sligo/Leitrim constituency.

This caused much consternation at the time as two years previously town councils in Bundoran and Ballyshannon had also been abolished in June of 2014, effectively leaving the area without direct Donegal representation apart from a county councillor being elected from both southern towns..

Donegal South-West was a parliamentary constituency represented in Dáil Éireann, from 1961 to 1969 and from 1981 to 2016. 

The constituency elected three TD’s, as did its counterpart in the north of the county, Donegal North East.

The constituency was first created for the 1961 general election. 

At the 1969 general election it was abolished and replaced by the Donegal–Leitrim constituency. 

It was recreated for the 1981 general election, as remained the case until abolition in 2016.