According to the last figures published by the Church in 2003 it has 345,745 members throughout Ireland.

Of these, 281,751 - or 82 per cent - are found in the northern dioceses of Connor, Down and Dromore, Derry and Raphoe, Clogher and the archdiocese of Armagh. Yet they have only 52 per cent of synod members.

This disparity is best illustrated by comparing the primatial archdiocese of Armagh with the sprawling united diocese of Cashel, Waterford, Lismore, Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin.

Armagh has a Church of Ireland population of 33,369 and sends 54 members to General Synod.

By contrast, Cashel is more than 75 per cent smaller yet sends more representatives - 63 - to synod.

The imbalance is even more striking when one realises that dioceses pay levies into central funds according to their size. Under the current system, this means that synod representation is not linked to taxation.

Against this backdrop of northern under-representation, a working group was in 2003 given the task of finding a way of softening the discrepancy.

It proposed a way of evening out the southern bias, coming up with a system which would have given the northern dioceses 61 per cent of synod seats.

But according to its report last year, the standing committee was divided on whether the proposal would receive sufficient support if it was put to - the southern-dominated - General Synod.

The committee observed, in an ecclesiastical way of saying that turkeys do not vote for Christmas, that: "It was decided that there would be insufficient support for the proposals by the General Synod and no recommendations were made."

However, the issue is bound to be revisited at future synods.

This news comes from Irish Angle and its web address www.irishangle.net

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