Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----it is extraordinary that the Government's idea of reform is to advise people, including the 50,900 who left in the last 12 months, that they have social media and do not need a vote.

In our policy documents we have advocated that the Irish overseas and the diaspora should have a vote and a voice in a reformed Dáil. There is a meeting of the Constitutional Convention this weekend dealing with the issue of giving a vote in presidential elections to the Irish living outside the State, and rightly so. The Government is telling Irish citizens who have Irish passports and were born in this country, but who have left in the last number of years and live overseas, that they will never have a voice in Leinster House. If the forthcoming referendum is won by the Government, there will be no voice for them in Seanad Éireann. The Ministers and Taoiseach will talk at great length around 17 March about our diaspora and citizens overseas as an asset, but if they will not give a citizens of a republic, regardless of where they live, a voice in Parliament, they are not reforming politics and bringing about that democratic revolution that was promised when the Government came into power. We are being bluntly told that Irish citizens, as defined under our Constitution, will never get a vote in the Irish Parliament.

Is this something the Minister is prepared to defend? I ask the Leader to organise a debate with the Minister concerned. I also ask him to comment on the matter.