Constituency and Electoral Boundary Reviews

An Coimisiún Toghcháin, The Electoral Commission is responsible for conducting reviews of all Dail and European Parliament constituencies.

When conducting these reviews the Electoral Reform Act 2022 provides that the Commission shall have regard to the following;

• the total number of members of the Dáil, subject to Article 16.2.2° of the Constitution, shall be not less than 171 and not more than 181;
• each constituency shall return 3, 4 or 5 members;
• the breaching of county boundaries shall be avoided as far as practicable.
• The reference to county boundaries does not include a reference to the boundary of a city or any boundary between any 2 of the counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin;
• each constituency shall be composed of contiguous areas;
• there shall be regard to geographic considerations including significant physical features and the extent of and the density of population in each constituency
• the Commission shall endeavour to maintain continuity in relation to the arrangement of constituencies.

The Commission will present its report to the Joint Oireachtas Committee not later than three months after the final result of the census of the population of the State.

The Commission will also be responsible for reviewing local electoral area boundaries and report to the Minister for Housing, Local Government & Heritage in relation to those boundaries.

After every census there is a review of the composition and boundaries of the Dáil constituencies. Our Constitution provides that there should be, on average, one TD to represent every 20,000-30,000 people.

Our electoral laws also set out further criteria for Constituency Reviews:  

• that each constituency will be comprised of 3, 4 or 5 members; 
• that the breaching of county boundaries should be avoided if possible; 
• that each constituency must be composed of adjoining areas; 
• that we must consider significant geographic, population density and physical features, 
• and finally, that in carrying out this work, the Electoral Commission should try to maintain as much continuity of electoral areas as possible. 

The Commission recommends that the next Dáil would see 174 TDs representing 43 Dáil Constituencies, up from the current 160 TDs in 39 Constituencies.

In November 2023, we made our independent recommendations to the Oireachtas on the make-up of Ireland’s electoral constituencies for June’s European Parliament elections.

The Commission recommends, in its report laid before the Oireachtas today, that an additional 14^th MEP allocated to Ireland for the European Parliament elections, will be allocated to the Midlands-North West constituency, and that the counties of Laois and Offaly transfer from the South constituency into the Midlands constituency.

The recommendations follow a month long public consultation with submissions received from political parties, elected representatives and interested individuals.