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Irish Examiner
July 18,
2003
Summary: Because new
countries are being added to the European Parliament, the share of
seats for countries already represented in the Parliament, such as
Ireland, is decreasing, and therefore constituent boundaries will
have to be redrawn. The author of this piece suggests that instead
of drawing a new set of boundaries, Ireland should elect EP members
as a single national constituency, using full representation, of
course. Irish Examiner opinion/letter
Let’Äôs have one constituency for European polls
By Jason FitzHarris
July 18, 2003 THE Boundary Commission on changes
to the European parliamentary constituencies is going to have a
difficult job trying to draw boundaries that will make sense. This
problem has occurred firstly because Ireland will lose two MEPs to
allow for enlargement and, secondly, the Irish population has
increased dramatically and migrated from the west to the east since
the last election in 1999. In the future our population is likely
to continue increasing and migrating, and Ireland will lose another
couple of MEPs in the next rounds of enlargement to include
Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and the rest of the Balkans. Article I-9
of the draft European constitution mandates the European council to
approve a formula for the distribution of MEP seats prior to the
election in 2009 this may or may not result in Ireland losing
another MEP or two. Consequently future boundary commissions will
have to try to find some sort of rational method of distributing a
handful of representatives across four constituencies. So why can't
we have a permanent solution by creating a national constituency?
This would remove the need for the Boundary Commission spending
months poring over maps and census returns trying to draw boundaries
that will, in the end, please nobody. A national constituency would
allow voters to select from candidates across the country instead of
being stuck with their local selection. A national constituency
would remove the worry that MEPs have about their electoral base
being eroded and split up; it would also mean that each MEP would
have a national mandate to represent the interests of the entire
Irish nation instead of just a province. Under proportional
representation the larger the constituency the more representative
and proportional the outcome, so a national constituency would
result in the composition of the Irish MEPs being more
proportionally accurate. Finally, a national constituency would
bring a little variety to the Irish electorate and variety, after
all, is good for politics and democracy. Jason FitzHarris, Oak
Park Ave., Carlow |
