South Donegal will stay in Sligo Leitrim in the next Dail election with the Boyle area also set to join the constituency.
While West Cavan will return to a new five seat Cavan-Monaghan constituency.
Those are the recommendations from the Constituencies Commission report 2017 which was commissioned by the government following last year’s census.
A number of submissions were made to the Constituencies Commission from people in this region earlier this year.
There was especially a hope by many in south Donegal that the nine electoral divisions that were moved to Sligo Leitrim in the last electoral boundary review in 2012 would return to Donegal.
This is not the case according to the new report which recommends south Donegal including Bundoran and Ballyshannon remains in a 4 seater Sligo Leitrim.
Donegal remains a five-seater with no changes recommended.
But 18 electoral divisions from North Roscommon formerly in the Roscommon Galway constituency will now move into Sligo Leitrim.
The report says that the Commission looked at a number of options here including moving parts of Mayo into Sligo Leitrim.
However in the end the 18 divisions with a population of 7,806 including Boyle urban and Boyle rural, the divisions west of Carrick-on-Shannon and north to Lough Allen are now in the Sligo Leitrim constituency.
Already politicians in the region have been reacting to the recommendations of the report with Roscommon Fine Gael Senator Frank Feighan from Boyle confirming he’ll now run in Sligo Leitrim.
Fianna Fail Sligo Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry has hit out at the report stating that it continues to ‘carve-up’ rural communities by dividing counties.
He hit out at the new recommendations during a debate on a motion by the party to call from the reintroduction of town council in the Dail last night:
Fianna Fail Councillor in Cavan John-Paul Feely has welcomed the reunification of the county of Cavan which returns to a five-seater Cavan Monaghan constituency.
