Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will focus first on voting rights in presidential elections and then move on to citizens' rights. Very few people have a difficulty with extending voting rights in presidential elections to everyone on this island.

Professor Harvey mentioned avoiding the risks. I would like to dwell on that for a second. The issue that concerns many people is the possibility of personality politics. We saw this to some degree in the previous presidential election. Has Professor Harvey looked at how people would qualify under the Bill he is discussing? I am not overly familiar with it. In tandem with this reform, would it make sense to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16 right across the island to give the opportunity to vote to people who obviously want their say? Professor Harvey might say this would confuse the issue. Does he have a view on show business personalities who run for a position for symbolic or other reasons but do not necessarily qualify for the role of President?

The issue of citizens' rights and birthrights under the Good Friday Agreement has been raised. The Tánaiste committed in this forum to addressing the presidential vote in October of this year. It has not materialised so it must have been put on the back burner. We challenged Robin Walker MP on citizens' rights at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. He was at pains to point out that the agreement does not just offer the right to be British or Irish and emphasised the right to be neither. I thought this was interesting because it is not referred to in the Good Friday Agreement. It has been 20 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Research carried out here in Leinster House makes clear that rights were amended last March to deal with migrants in Britain. As Professor Harvey says, the British Government has flagrantly decided on a different interpretation of the agreement. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, and the Dáil have committed to changing this. Why was it not considered before? In Professor Harvey's view, why has it taken almost 20 years for the need to enshrine this in legislation to reach our agendas? Very few people seem to have spoken about it until recently.