I have been doing some background work on my own submission although have not got around to uploading it yet. I will do so in the next week and publish here when I do.

The review body is split into two groups, one considering Dublin and city councils, the other looking at county council areas. Kildare of course, falls under the latter category. There are three headline items under the review terms of reference, namely to align Dáil and council boundaries, to remove 3-seater electoral areas, and to maintain existing numbers of councillors constant within each council. The first two make sense although the last caused some disappointment as it means areas like Kildare will still have a much higher councillor-population ratio than elswhere, as the population growth in the county has not been matched by increased local representation.

Looking at the website, there have been 22 submissions received to date on the county side. Regarding Kildare, FG’s Tony O’Donnell has an excellent submission where he has performed virtual alchemy to bring all the current electoral areas back into line. He has redistributed population across the various wards to ensure an even councillor-constituent ratio whilst also observing the review terms of reference and all backed up with solid scientific argument.

Naas Town Councillor, Darren Scully, makes the other Kildare submission received to date. Darren’s submission recognises the influx of population into the northern end of the Naas ward and the disconnect of the community in the southern end. He argues for an extra seat bringing the LEA from 5 to 6 while simultaneously arguing for the removal of Ballmore/Kilcullen from the Naas LEA. Whilst both points have merit individually, taken together I’m not sure they make sense – surely it’s one or the other. It’s hard to find logic around losing half the ward AND gaining an extra seat at the same time, however politically desirable it may be. Of course the good people of the Naas LEA would be extremly well represented if this was to happen and there’d be no complaints from me either!

My own submission, though I’ve yet to frame it, will be to align the Dáil and LEA boundaries for the Naas area which is in keeping with the review terms of reference. This revision would see a truncation of the current LEA at the Kildare South border, dropping the Kilcullen/Ballymore end but including the Newtown ED around Punchestown which recently moved into the Kildare North consituency. I would consider pulling Bodenstown ED fully into Naas LEA, which is currently split between Naas and Clane and I would give serious thought to Caragh staying as is. Despite being Kildare South, culturally Caragh sits in the Naas hinterland and the case could be made for unform representation.

Anyway less blogging more action, I must get my act together and get that submission in, or it will all be academic!

The guidelines for the review state that the minimum number of councillors in any given ward should be four and that local boundaries should be kept in line with Dáil boundaries. The guidelines state that whilst the total number of councillors in any given authority should remain unchanged, areas and seats can be reshuffled across wards.

What this means for politicans and the electorate is as follows. Sitting councillors shall remain in situ until June next year when the next local elections are due to occur. Those elections will be fought on the basis of the new local areas and the revised number of seats in each.

Map showing current wards within Naas LEA

The commission will be inviting submissions and I intend studying the various Kildare wards more thoroughly in the coming weeks, but my initial observations are as follows:

Unfortunately as the review effectively freezes the total number of councillors in each authority (in our case KCC) it does mean we will still have a higher than average variance, whatever way it pans out. In a nutshell this means Kildare people have less councillors to serve the same number of people as elsewhere. Anway, more on all this anon..

It remains very, very difficult for ‘ordinary citizens’ to take on the role of local office. Not so much getting elected, which is a challenge in itself financially and otherwise, but also the nature and demands of the position once one does make the cut.

County Council business is conducted as an entirely day-time exercise, meetings of committees and sub-committees can stretch into many hours and days each month, all during “9-5″ slots. Very few employments will allow this flexibility to come and go as the council demands, yet the annual stipend remains around €15,000 a year. Allowances and expenses can vary but for most representatives the job barely hits minimum wage.

Áras Chill Dara, home of Kildare County Council

What all of this means is that certain occupations or the independently wealthy are disproportionately present in local office – the ordinary citizen must hold down a day job which is simply not compatible with conducting council business – particularly now in the modern era of commuting, with increasingly long hours and mortgages and childcare to boot.

And so for the most part, the demographic of local ‘representatives’ remains neither representative of the population or of the real world.