Professor Colin Harvey:

First, the concern around that point is that people end up being disenfranchised both ways. They are not able to vote where they want. Second, we would like to underline that this is increasingly common practice. We have seen the French presidential elections being facilitated in Ireland and in Britain. It is being done. It can be made operational and done.

This is a clear recommendation from the Constitutional Convention from 2013. We are a number of years on from that so would it be fair to say that the debate on principle has been won but that many of the questions now are to do with making the principle operational? We would like to underline that we believe the options paper that was published in March is a useful contribution to that debate. It contains useful information on issues such as costing, for example, and comparative practice. We are a fair way on from 2013. We are in 2017, and the interest now is about when a referendum will be held.

From my perspective, although we are talking about voting rights today, it is part of a bigger picture emerging from that Constitutional Convention. In the human rights area I work on issues that arise around social and economic rights too. This has been recommended. We are a long way on from 2013. The Government has published an options paper. Warm words have been spoken about it but we are waiting now for a date for when the referendum might be held. That is our sense of it.