In one of the most drastic overhauls of county and city council boundaries in the history of the Irish state, Dublin and the surrounding commuter belt has emerged as the big winner.

The report published by the Local Electoral Area Boundary Committee has reshaped the Irish electoral map with the number of councillors reduced from 1,627 to 949 councillors, in 137 local electoral areas.

The number of individual local authorities has also been cut from 114 to 31.

The changes mean that there is now one councillor for 4,830 people, with each council having at least 18 members.

But Dublin City and County council will get 53 extra councillors, while surrounding areas like Meath, Louth and Wicklow will also get a significant boost. In total, Dublin City Council will get 63 members, while Dun Laoighaire-Rathdown, South Dublin and Fingal get 12, 14 and 16 more councillors respectively. 

Cork City council remains excluded from the report for now. However there have been merges including Limerick City and Council, North and South Tipperary, and Waterford City and Council fusing together.

  

  

Here are the proposed boundaries by size:

63

Dublin

 

55

Cork County

 

40

Dun Laoighaire-Rathdown, Fingal, Kildare, Limerick, Meath, South Dublin, Tipperary

 

39

Galway County

 

37

Donegal,

 

34

Wexford

 

33

Kerry

 

32

Waterford, Wicklow

 

31

Cork City*

 

30

Mayo

 

29

Louth

 

28

Clare

 

24

Kilkenny

 

20

Westmeath

 

19

Laois, Offaly

 

18

Carlow, Cavan, Galway City, Leitrim, Longford, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo

 

*did not take part in the review