Frances Black (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Professor Harvey for his presentation today. It is great to see him again. He always gives very clear and precise presentations.

I will make a few points and I ask Professor Harvey to comment on them and give his view. Ireland is an outlier on this issue. Of the 28 EU member states, 24 allow their citizens to vote from abroad, while only four, Malta, Cypress, Denmark and Ireland, do not. Germany had previously set a 25-year time limit on external voting but this was relaxed in 2012. The United Kingdom has a 15-year time limit but after a European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, case, it now plans to drop it. Internationally, the trend is moving strongly towards providing for external voting rights, with more than 120 countries now having done so. These figures emphasise how out of step we are on this issue.

On the legal aspect, in 2014 the European Commission Vice-President, Viviane Reding, was strongly critical on this matter, suggesting a potential legal challenge in the Court of Justice of the European Union. She said:

The right to vote is one of the fundamental political rights of citizenship. Depriving citizens of their right to vote once they move to another EU country is effectively tantamount to punishing citizens for exercising their right to free movement.

In this manner, she added, "suffrage becomes effectively suspended for the duration of the migration." Does Professor Harvey agree that a legal challenge could be made on this matter? Is the issue different for Irish citizens who were born and are living in the North given that they have not moved country?

Should seats in the European Parliament be sought solely for Irish citizens living in the North or should they be for Irish citizens living anywhere outside the State? If the North leaves the European Union because of Brexit, is there a legal difference in terms of the right to vote between an Irish citizen living outside the State in Belfast and an Irish citizen living outside the State in Australia or the United States?