Could be putting two and two together to get six, but I heard yesterday from two different people that there’s a rumour the ‘context’ refers to the upcoming review of local government.
I noticed the Sunday Times had a report that the changes would include balancing out the regional difference in votes – smaller population sizes mean you can become a councillor in rural Ireland with a vote that wouldn’t retain your deposit in Dublin.
Correcting this, the Sunday Times noted, would mean an increase in the number of Council seats in urban local authorities, which would benefit Labour. The writer suggested this was a clear sop from Fine Gael to Labour.
I didn’t make the connection to the ‘context’, but others did. No evidence for it of course, and I tend to automatically disbelieve the ‘conspiracy theory’ school of Irish politics when the explanations are usually more boring.