Extra seat for revamped Longford/Westmeath constituency

Longford/Westmeath is to become a five-seat constituency.

It follows a recommendation by the Electoral Commission in its Constituency Review published this morning.

The constituency will now include 19 electoral divisions in the north east of Westmeath around Castlepollard, with a population of some 9,481 to be returned to the Longford/Westmeath constituency from Meath West.

The constituency of Longford-Westmeath is currently a 4 seat constituency with a population of 133,488, an increase of 12,526 (10.4%) from the 2016 Census.

The Commission said the Longford-Westmeath constituency has the population to justify the allocation of an additional seat to become a 5 seat constituency.

The Longford-Westmeath constituency would now be exclusively made up of the entire counties of Longford and Westmeath for the first time since 1980.

There is a variance of –3.37% between the national average and the actual number of people that each TD in the proposed Longford/Westmeath constituency represents.

Article 16.2.3 of the Constitution states that: “The ratio between the number of members to be elected at any time for each constituency and the population of each constituency, as ascertained at the last preceding census, shall, so far as it is practicable, be the same throughout the country.”

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