Voters want their constituency boundaries redrawn

Whoever forms the next government will be under pressure from voters in Galway to redraw the constituency boundaries as a matter of urgency.

While a lot of the conversation nationally concerns water charges and government reform, the voters in Galway simply want their county back.

In Galway East, in particular, a large tract of the constituency is now gone in with Roscommon and for the voters in the likes of Ballinasloe, Ballygar, Glenamaddy and Dunmore, this is not a very favourable situation in their minds.

Many said that, apart from a couple of names on the ballot paper, they were not familiar with the vast majority of candidates who put their names forward.

Roscommon has become the bane of Galway voters for several decades. Back in the seventies and eighties part of the county was in Galway East when Tom Hussey from Glenamaddy was a TD.

Then it was decided that the county boundary would be preserved as the constituency was made into a four-seater back in 1997 and it remained as such until 2012 when 20,000 votes was put into a new Roscommon-dominated constituency.

The whole of Ballinasloe town is in the Roscommon-Galway constituency and yet the vast majority of those with an interest in politics were in New Inn watching the Galway East count almost two weeks ago.

And to add to their frustration, there was no candidate in the field from the Ballinasloe area. In fact the only Galway candidate in the constituency was independent Deputy Mick Fitzmaurice from Glinsk who was successfully returned.

But the vast majority of those from the Ballinasloe area told The Connacht Tribune that they wanted to be part of Galway East and not in Roscommon. They are already lobbying potential government TDs to have to boundaries revised.

Even for voters in Roscommon, it has been confusing. For many years they have been involved in a Roscommon-Longford constituency and then on the last occasion they had to get familiar with candidates in South Leitrim. Now they have a chunk of Galway thrown in with them.

Equally the vast majority of the 7,500 voters in South Mayo do not want to be part of Galway West and they too have expressed the view that the county boundaries should be restored when it comes to voting in a general election.

There was apathy among the voters in areas such as Ballinrobe, Kilmaine and Garrymore when they saw a ballot paper that contained 19 Galway candidates and just one from Mayo – John O’Mahony who failed to win a seat for Fine Gael.