Professor Oran Doyle:

Let me respond to the three questions collectively. There are clearly strong arguments for including younger people in franchises generally. The Venice Commission, which looks at these sorts of things, recommends against making any changes to referendum rules within 12 months of the referendum. The concerns we had about people perceiving the referendum rules being set up to secure particular outcomes are stronger the closer the change in rules happens to the referendum and, therefore, if we did want 16- and 17-year-olds and EU citizens to have a right to vote in ultimate referendums, in the South we would need to secure constitutional amendments to that effect. If that were done now, it would be reasonably possible to say that if this comes around in five or ten years, that would be the franchise that people would be used to. The question then is whether we are trying to match them or trying to anticipate what would happen in the North. A footnote I should put in is that the Good Friday Agreement was done on the basis of the Westminster franchise, not the local government franchise in Northern Ireland, so EU citizens were not allowed to vote then.

I will say one thing about citizens’ assemblies. In thinking about them, it is worthwhile thinking not on the issue of whether there should be unification, but separating out various aspects that would need to be considered, whether around health provision or devolution, and so on. That is a way of informing thinking about what the offer from the Irish Government should be and what the model should be, in terms of Professor O'Leary's presentation. I would just add in that dimension as well.