Micheal Martin has been slammed for ignoring the country’s west coast in Cabinet.
TDs from rural areas rounded on the Taoiseach after it emerged that there are no senior ministers from any of the counties stretching from Malin Head in Donegal to the border of Kerry in Limerick.
And there’s nothing either for most of the south east, with Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford all without representation too.
The combined population of the unrepresented comes close to 2 million people, which leaves almost half the country’s population without a decision-making seat in Government.
In an amazing split, nine of the 15 new ministers come from the Greater Dublin area, two from Greystones in Wicklow and three from the one constituency in Cork.
Independent TD for Roscommon-Galway constituency, Michael Fitzmaurice, is furious with the new Cabinet’s “ridiculous, absolutely scandalous” divide.
He has produced a stark, shocking map of the country to illustrate the imbalance.
It shows a huge red patch from Donegal to Kerry and stretching over as far as Meath which represents the areas where there are no ministers.
Mr Fitzmaurice said: “After seeing the makeup of the Cabinet, I was baffled to see that there is not one senior minister from the top of Donegal to the bottom of Limerick.
“I threw down the gauntlet to the new Taoiseach Micheal Martin to ensure that the people of the West of Ireland are treated fairly moving forward during the term of this Government.”
Hildegarde Naughton has been picked as a Super Junior Minister by Fine Gael leader, Leo Varadkar, and she has a seat at the Cabinet table, but no vote.
She has the mouthful of a title of being the new Junior Minister with Special Responsibility for International and Road Transport and Logistics.
Ms Naughton defended the Government’s miserable regional allocation of ministers when she was rolled out on behalf of the new Government on Sunday.
She said: “Myself and Dara (Calleary, Fianna Fáil’s Super Junior pick from Mayo) will be serving and attending Cabinet and representing the West I believe very strongly.”
Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan admitted the divvy-up may not have been perfect.
He said: “I don't think government can ignore any part of the country; be it the south, east, or west, or any part.
“It is difficult to get that regional balance when you have three different parties so you're not picking for a full cabinet when you're making your selection.
“Each of the leaders was cognisant on the need for gender and regional balance, and it may not be perfect.”
The pressure will now be on Mr Martin, Mr Varadkar and Mr Ryan to try and correct some of the imbalance when they announce the 20 junior ministers this week.
Expect a tsunami of the juniors will come from the backbench ranks of all three parties in areas that got left out outlined above.
