Tánaiste defends plans to increase number of TDs 

The Tánaiste has defended plans to increase the number of the country’s politicians, arguing they are not “an expense we can’t afford”.

Micheál Martin was in Oxford on Friday ahead of attending the British-Irish Association conference.

His comments come after the Electoral Commission recommended the number of TDs should be increased from 160 to 174 following a review of the country’s boundaries.

The constituency review was prompted by a boom in the population to 5.15 million, as shown in Census 2022 – an increase of 8% in four years.

As the Irish constitution says there needs to be one TD to represent every 20,000 to 30,000 people, the constituency boundaries needed to shift.

Asked if the Irish people want to pay for more TDs, Mr Martin said that “democracy is not perfect”.

He said: “I am a democrat and I take a different view to that approach, in the sense that people value democracy in Ireland … for over 100 years now a modern democracy.

“It has worked for Ireland and continues to work.

“Democracy is not perfect. I really don’t like the attitude of are we willing to pay for more politicians?” 

Mr Martin said he had just come back from an EU conference in Spain, where he had watched presentations from west African politicians who would “dearly love” to have their politicians back following a series of coups in the region.

“That’s a government in Niger that was really working democratically, that was getting on top of a lot of situations … and they would dearly love to have their politicians back," he said. 

“So, we need to be very careful about some of the disparaging remarks, or sort of a line of thinking that somehow politicians are an expense that we can’t afford.

“I think that would be very dangerous indeed.” 

The boundary review follows population increases across nearly all of Ireland’s constituencies.