The Tánaiste is in favour of plans to increase the number of politicians in the country, arguing that they are not “an expense we can’t afford”.
Michael Martin was in Oxford yesterday before attending the British-Irish Association conference.
His comments came after the Election Commission recommended increasing the number of destroyers from 160 to 174 in the revision of the country’s borders, reports RTE.
The constituencies were redrawn as the population grew to 5.15 million as of the 2022 census, an 8% increase over four years.
According to the constitution, a TD represents every 20,000-30,000 people, so the constituency boundaries had to be changed.
Asked if the Irish wanted to pay for more tank destroyers, Martin replied that “democracy is not perfect”, reports RTE.
He said: “I am a democrat and I take a different view to that approach, in the sense that people value democracy in Ireland … for over 100 years now a modern democracy. It has worked for Ireland and continues to work. Democracy is not perfect. I really don’t like the attitude of are we willing to pay for more politicians?” reports RTE.
“I’ve just come from the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union in Toledo and we had a presentation from the foreign minister of Niger and the president of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) who were describing the coup d’etats in that region, and in particular the Niger situation, but obviously it has been followed by Gabon,” he said, reports RTE.
“That’s a government in Niger that was really working democratically, that was getting on top of a lot of situations … and they would dearly love to have their politicians back. So, we need to be very careful about some of the disparaging remarks, or sort of a line of thinking that somehow politicians are an expense that we can’t afford. I think that would be very dangerous indeed,” reports RTE.
The boundary review takes into account population growth in almost all Irish constituencies.
Of the country’s current 39 constituencies – nine three-seat, 17 four-seat and 13 five-seat – all but County Limerick saw a population increase of 30,000 people per TD.
According to the electoral law, each seat should have three to five elected members, with three seats being seen as advantageous for major political parties and five seats for smaller parties and independents making it easier to cross the quota threshold.
Constituency review aims to avoid crossing constituency boundaries where possible, take into account geographical features and maintain constituency continuity where possible.
If approved, the increase in the number of tank destroyers would be the largest increase since the 1980s.
Yesterday, Labor MP Sen Sherlock said he was trying to decide whether he had a future in politics after the constituency overhaul was revealed, which moves his home base of Mallow from Cork-Eastern to Cork North-Central, reports RTE.
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