budget cuts td seats cut question

question on upcoming budget cuts
out of curiosity could some one do a rough costing . if every constituency in the country was reduced by one td seat how much would be saved in a year.

There are 166 TD's currently in Dail Eireann. There are 43 constituencies. A reduction of 1 TD per constituencies would leave 123 TD's in Dail Eireann.

Our Constitution demands that there be no fewer than 143 TD's at any time ( this is based on a min of 1 TD per 20,000 people and max 1 per 30,000), therefore a reduction of 43's TD's would probably mean a referendum.

We are actually very similar in TD/Population ratio as Bulgaria, Czech Rep, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Hungary, Lithuania and Sweden.

As for money saved in a year, well the cost of holding a referendum would cancel out any savings made by reducing the numbers of TD's by 1 per constituency.

You'd need to consider the political impacts as well. Less TDs means more centerist TDs. Is that really what you want?

If you want to cut the costs of the Dáil, you could make a good start by cutting the 'turning up money' and other expenses, cutting out dedicated cars/drivers for each Minister, cutting pensions for anyone under 65, capping pensions for very high earners etc.

Complainer said:

You'd need to consider the political impacts as well. Less TDs means more centerist TDs. Is that really what you want?

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I'd say that's taking a bit of a leap.

As far as I can see the most divisive politicians are more often than not the poll topers: Lowry, O'Dea, Ahern, Healy Rae.

Single agenda candidates also do very well here leading to a lot of independents.

I don't see much evidence that less TDs would lead to more centerist TD's (or better ones either for that matter).

I should have been more specific. What I really meant was that less seats means more TDs from centrist parties, i.e. more FG/FF, less Lab/GP/SF/Ind.

Complainer said:

I should have been more specific. What I really meant was that less seats means more TDs from centrist parties, i.e. more FG/FF, less Lab/GP/SF/Ind.

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Not necessarily -

In the 2007 Election, taking all 4 & 5 seat constituencies

Fianna Fail took the last seat in 7 of them
Fine Gael - 8 seats
Greens - 3 seats
Labour - 2 seats
Sinn Fein - 2 seats
Independent - 1 seat (Beverly Cooper Flynn)

For the last one alone it may be worth bringing it in!

Complainer said:

I should have been more specific. What I really meant was that less seats means more TDs from centrist parties, i.e. more FG/FF, less Lab/GP/SF/Ind.

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Labour, I'm sure you would agree, are the biggest party in the state so they'd hardly be the losers.
BTW, Labour are center left, just beside FF. FG are center. We don't have any rightwing parties. The left is tiny(SF, Socialists etc) and all of the main parties are socially liberal (FG used to be the most but they've gone backwards and it's now Labour).

johnwilliams said:

if every constituency in the country was reduced by one td seat how much would be saved in a year.

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Well, Jim McDaid has just resigned his Dail seat so there will be four vacant TD seats until the by-elections next year. Is Jim McDaid constituency already down a TD after Pat the Cope Gallager ran for Europe? That would mean they are down two TDs up there. Will it make a difference.......

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1102/mcdaid.html