Joy as Swords is reunited

PEOPLE power and common sense prevailed last week when the Constituency Commission report recommended that Swords be reunited in a new constituency for the next general election.

As per the constituency changes, Dublin North will now be called Dublin Fingal with an amendment to its catchment area.

Swords will now be part of the new five-seat constituency, which will also include Balbriggan, Balgriffin, Donabate, Lusk, Malahide East and West and Portmarnock South, among other areas.

In 2007, Swords was controversially split into the Dublin West and Dublin North constituencies.

The move was confusing and hugely unpopular, not least among the 13,000 Swords residents who suddenly found themselves in the same constituency as Blanchardstown and Castleknock residents.

Residents breathed a collective sigh of relief after their campaign to have all of Swords reunited in the one constituency proved successful.

Over half of the submissions made to the Constituency Commission related to the Swords boundary.

Sandra White, from Park Avenue, Brackenstown, was one of over 280 voters assigned to vote in a polling station three miles away, instead of the one across the road, as a result of being transferred to the Dublin West constituency.

“My house literally faces the polling station in St Cronin’s School where I used to vote but then all of a sudden I was being made drive to Rivervalley to vote for people I didn’t know,

? Ms White told Northside People.

“I bought my house in north county Dublin. If I wanted to be in Dublin West I would have bought a house there in the first place.

?

David Gibney, chairperson of the Swords Electoral Boundary Action Group, congratulated the residents on the successful campaign.

“Since 2008, the Swords Electoral Boundary Action Group has been campaigning in relation to this issue, meeting with politicians, drafting submissions and dropping information leaflets to the residents of Swords,

? said Mr Gibney.

“This decision means all that effort and the efforts by individual residents who sent in their own submissions were not in vain.

“

Swords ward councillor Darragh Butler (FF) said:

“I am delighted that common sense has prevailed.

“Constituents, including myself, felt disenfranchised and isolated by the split and thankfully the new commission listened and our submissions were taken into account.

?

Dublin North TD Brendan Ryan (Lab) also welcomed the reunification of Swords within the new Dublin Fingal constituency.

“The division of Swords stood out as the most ridiculous decision of the previous boundary commission in 2007,

? said Deputy Ryan.

“For a town of its size, with a community as close as it is, it was vital that common sense prevailed and Swords was reunited.

?

The reunification of Swords was just one of a raft of changes to constituencies in Dublin on foot of the Constituency Commission’s report.

The three-seat constituency of Dublin North Central no longer exists. A new constituency to be known as Dublin Bay North will have five seats. It replaces the two three-seat constituencies Dublin North Central and Dublin North East.

Dublin Central drops to three seats from four, while Dublin North West and Dublin West will remain three and four-seat constituencies respectively.

Meanwhile, Dublin North East TD Tommy Broughan (Lab) has hit out at the cut in Dublin and Northside representation.

“It is deplorable that the present Government, which is rightly committed to the abolition of the Senate, simultaneously allowed the Dail to be cut to 158 seats after 30 years of a 166-seat Dail Eireann,

? said Deputy Broughan.

“The resulting impact on the Dublin region is most severe with a reduction of three seats to 44 (from 47 in 2004 and 2007) when it was generally felt by political scientists that Dublin was under represented by at least two seats for the past two decades.

?