The Government is mounting a campaign to retain the Republic's 13 seats in the European Parliament, even though the Constituency Commission has been instructed to redraw the current boundaries on the basis of just 12 seats.
The commission is due to issue its report on new Dáil and European constituency boundaries in October. This will coincide with a European summit meeting which will decide whether Ireland can, after all, retain its current 13 seats.
The reduction in the number of seats was agreed as part of the Nice Treaty but, at a summit meeting in June, EU leaders decided to allocate a number of extra seats to the parliament to bring its numbers up to 750 at the next election in 2009 compared to 736 as envisaged in the treaty.
The Government is confident that Ireland has a very strong case for retaining its 13 seats on the basis of the big increase in population to 4.2 million as revealed in the 2006 census.
One of the reasons behind the decision to expand the number of MEPs to 750 was a demand by Spain that it should be entitled to four more seats than the number allocated in the treaty, on the basis that its population had increased by four million.
Spain's voting strength at EU ministerial meetings is the same as that of Poland and any decision to allow Spain four extra seats would lead to a knock on demand from Poland. Malta will also get an extra seat on the basis of agreement between the EU leaders that no country should have less than five seats in the parliament.
Even if Spain and Poland get four extra seats each, and Malta gets one, a number of seats will still be left over for the EU leaders to play around with.
"We have a very strong case for the retention of 13 seats because of our population increase," said one Government source. "The Nice Treaty provision will give us the same number of seats as Lithuania but our population is almost 600,000 greater and we are clearly entitled to an extra seat," he added.
A problem facing the Government in its campaign to retain 13 seats is that two months before the June EU summit it had set up a new Constituency Commission charged with producing a set of boundaries based on 12 seats.
If it reports before the next EU summit the Government's case for an extra seat could be weakened considerably. On its current terms of reference the commission will have to decide whether to recommend four three-seat constituencies or three four-seaters. The expectation is that it will recommend four three seaters.
This will require the addition of new areas to the North-West constituency, probably Longford Westmeath, and the transfer of part of Dublin to the East constituency. Either Dublin North or Dún Laoghaire would likely be moved.
The members of the commission are: Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill, chairman; the clerk of the Dáil, Kieran Coughlan; the clerk of the Seanad, Deirdre Lane; the Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly; and the secretary general of the Department of the Environment, Geraldine Tallon.
