A constitutional challenge against the government's decision not to act was taken in April by two Independent TDs, Finian McGrath and Catherine Murphy, and the High Court is due to rule on that later this week. But obviously that can not affect the outcome of a general election that has already taken place. So, leaving aside the aforementioned three-quarters of a million people left shortchanged for the next five years, who were the political winners and losers of the decision to maintain the status quo and leave the constituencies unaltered for election 2007?

THE WINNERS

1) Aengus O Snodaigh, Sinn Fein.Any redrawing of the constituencies would have affected Dublin South-Central which doesn't have the population to justify five seats. Given that O Snodaigh just about held his seat nine days ago, narrowly defeating Labour's Eric Byrne for the fifth seat, he would have certainly have lost out if this was a four seater constituency in the election.

2) Ciaran Cuffe, Green Party, or Alan Shatter, Fine Gael. Like O Snodaigh, Cuffe just about held on to take the fifth seat in Dun Laoghaire. But that fifth seat probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. The population of Dun Laoghaire and the adjoining Dublin South is enough to justify nine seats between them and the new boundary commission is likely to leave Dublin South as a five seater (with a chunk of Dun Laoghaire transferred to it) and reduce Dun Laoghaire (its population is falling faster) to a four seater. Therefore, Cuffe can consider himself very fortunate to still be in the Dail. However, it is conceivable that a boundary commission would leave Dun Laoghaire at five seats (again with some changes to its boundaries) and reduce Dublin South to four. On that basis, Alan Shatter would have lost out.

3) Margaret Conlon, Fianna Fail. Conlon's remarkable achievement in taking a seat for Fianna Fail was one of the success stories of the general election but Cavan-Monaghan's population means it should not be a five seater in its current form.

It could be maintained as a five seater if population from Longford was added . . . in that scenario Conlon would very probably have won the seat . . . or the alternative would be to transfer a part of Monaghan into under-represented Louth and make that constituency a five seater, which would have made life a lot harder for Conlon.

4) Terence Flanagan, Fine Gael.Again, a remarkable feat by Flanagan to take a seat in three seat Dublin North-East but the constituency and the adjoining three seat Dublin North-Central will not be left unchanged by any boundary commission.

One option could be to turn North-Central and North-East into a five seater (transferring a section of North-East into a new five seat Dublin North). If this had been the case last Thursday week, high profile Richard Bruton would still have been a certainty but Fine Gael's vote wouldn't have been enough to take a second seat.

5) Kieran O'Donnell, Fine Gael. Limerick East is another constituency seriously over-represented based on its current population. The only way of maintaining it at five seats would be to return a chunk of Limerick West that had previously been in this constituency (compensated by an area of Kerry North going to Limerick West). Given that the area in question was a stronghold of former PD Peadar Clohessy, such a move could conceivably have been enough to elect Tim O'Malley rather than O'Donnell.

6) Jackie Healy-Rae, Independent Fianna Fail. The population of Kerry means the new boundary commission is likely to turn the county into one five seat constituency, instead of two three seaters.

In this scenario, Fianna Fail would be guaranteed two seats (with an outside chance of a third).

Fine Gael would certainly hold one seat and based on last week's performance it may have taken a second . . . helped by Labour transfers . . . with Sinn Fein's Martin Ferris probably fighting off Healy-Rae and Fianna Fail to take the final seat.

THE LOSERS

1) The Socialist Party . . . the party with the biggest reason to feel sore about the government's decision not to change the constituencies. It has justifiable claims that it was denied two seats. Dublin North and Dublin West are the two most underrepresented constituencies in the country . . . both are also outside the constitutional requirement to have a population to TD ratio of no higher than 1:30,000. In both these constituencies, the Socialists came just short of taking the final seat. In a four seat Dublin West, Joe Higgins would have easily been re-elected. The case of his party colleague in Dublin North, Clare Daly, is not quite so clear cut. She wasn't actually the highest placed loser in the constituency as she was narrowly eliminated before Labour's Brendan Ryan (who was two votes ahead of her). But given the closeness of the vote between Daly and Ryan, the Socialists can certainly claim a 50:50 chance of taking that fifth seat in the constituency.

2) Mairead McGuinness, Fine Gael. Louth is another constituency seriously under-represented and with a chunk from either Monaghan or Meath East, it will be a five seater after the boundary commission delivers its report. That would have meant a second seat for Fine Gael through McGuinness. Alternatively, the option is there for a boundary commission to make Meath East a four seater . . . by including a chunk of the Ardee area in Louth and thereby leaving the wee county as a four seater. If this had happened a year ago, Ardee native McGuinness might well have run in Meath East where she would have been challenging with Labour's Dominic Hannighan for the fourth seat.

3) Tim O'Malley, PDs. (See Kieran O'Donnell above).

4) Richard Daly, Fine Gael. Kildare South's population warrants an additional seat, albeit with some additions to the constituency (most likely from Offaly, where the population is currently under-represented), and in a four seater, Daly would have taken a seat in a constituency where Fine Gael once again drew a blank last week.