Green Minister Noonan calls for fewer TDs and bigger constituencies

Ahead of the Electoral Commission publishing their eagerly anticipated constituency boundary review on Wednesday, which could see anywhere from 11 to 21 more TDs added to the Dáil, Green Party TD and Minister for Electoral Reform Malcolm Noonan says that there should be fewer TDs in Ireland and bigger constituencies.

In an editorial for The Journal, Noonan wrote “rather than increasing the ratio of people to TDs, introducing a limit in the constitution on the number of TDs would eliminate the need to repeatedly revise our ratios.”

When the Irish constitution was drawn up in 1937, it stated that Ireland should have one TD per 20,000 to 30,000 people.

With recent population growth placing Ireland’s population at over 5 million, it is widely anticipated that Wednesday’s publication of the latest electoral boundary reviews will add 11 more TDs on the low end of recommendations, and 21 more TDs on the higher end.

Noonan says that the existing number of 160 TDs is “reasonable.”

He wrote that the figure of 160 is “large enough so that TDs don’t become as remote to ordinary voters as they are in the United States or the United Kingdom but few enough so that voters feel they aren’t wasting money and our backbenchers don’t feel like unappreciated lobby fodder.”

“There exists compelling evidence that many of our TDs are already too focused on non-essential work such as expediting passport applications and “securing” social welfare payments that constituents were always entitled to in the first place. Adding to the ranks of superfluous TDs is likely to exacerbate this trend.”

“As Minister of State for Electoral Reform, I intend to ask the Electoral Commission to investigate other jurisdictions in order to determine the best ratio of national representatives to people in order to deliver the most effective and fair form of representative democracy possible. Such a change would require a referendum but it is an amendment that could be easily explained and which voters would surely back,” he stated

Discussing the proposed constitutional change, he said the revision would “also need to happen in tandem with a revision in the size of our constituencies, so as to ensure female and minority representation is maintained and encouraged.”

“At present, too many of our constituencies are three or four-seaters, a status quo that generally favours the larger parties and those who traditionally dominate Irish politics; in other words, white middle-class men from large parties.”

Noonan discussed the themes of representation in politics and said that owing to Ireland’s voting system, it has a better chance of getting people from a minority background, such as members of the Traveler community or new Irish elected.

Pointing to the United Kingdom’s first-past-the-post voting system as an example of an unfair voting system, Noonan said that by adding 6 or 7 seat constituencies to Ireland “could prove crucial in helping to make the Dáil look a little more like the people who elect it.”