It appears that despite a huge surge in population, Fingal will get no extra councillors from the long promised review of local government boundaries and council wards. We now have a situation where the gross imbalances in terms of political representation that exist across the country look set to continue – the people of the Mulhuddart, for instance, having ten times as many electors per councillor as Leitrim County Council.

The belated announcement by the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley TD, of the appointment of Local Electoral Area Boundary Committees can therefore only be given a guarded welcome. With the committees being directed ‘to assume no change in the total membership of each local authority’, it would appear that the long-suffering citizens of Fingal may be shafted yet again with possible knock-on effects in terms of constraining the future effectiveness of our local government. Fingal, and in particular Dublin 15, is the one of the fastest growing areas in the country in terms of population, being reflected in the addition of an extra seat to the Dublin West Dáil constituency. It is high time that the facts on the ground were reflected in terms of county council representation.

Given both the urgency and the seriousness of the problem it is difficult to see why we may have to wait until 20 June of this year, only a year before the local elections, to see the lie of the land. This should have been one of the first decisions that the Minister made upon taking office, especially as the dog in the street knows that the local elections are scheduled for June 2009. Even given the overdue announcement of committees, this process could easily be wrapped up by Easter if the political will was there. While one wouldn’t want to suggest that the Minister was motivated by anything other than serving the public interest, one must wonder why he is pursuing these delaying tactics.