Dr. Theresa Reidy:

On the practical matter of voter registration, Ireland is quite unusual in having voluntary voter registration. Most other European countries have automatic registration where people are added to the electoral register based on their social security number. That means that we have particularly acute issues around younger voters. They are not eligible to go on the register until they are 18 years old, at a point where many people lose formal interaction with the State and many more move out of home. Therefore it is very difficult to get young people registered in a systematic way. While universities and other third level colleges do considerable work on this, there remains a whole cohort of people who are not registered, often including some of the most socially disadvantaged people so a cycle of disadvantage is built in. One thing that a change to the voting age would achieve is that it would get people while still in school. A person may or may not get to vote at 16 or 17 years, depending on the electoral cycle, but one thing we could do would be to build a system of registration where one goes on the electoral register at the age of 16. It would not take a referendum but could be introduced for local elections and European Parliament elections immediately, as there are no constitutional impediments or barriers. Those are practical methods, and were there an electoral commission, more systematic and sustained efforts at voter education would be possible. They could be targeted at a wider group of people.

The evidence internationally is that such changes do have an effect, albeit over a long period of time. We would not expect an immediate transformation. Evidence from Austria and Finland has shown that such registration has, over time, been helpful in engaging with younger voters. To answer the Senator's more precise question about why young voters do not participate at the same level, the reasons are complex but there are a couple of important points. One relates to how interested young people are in politics, which intersects with how much they think politics matters to them and how they see it affecting their lives. Another issue is their level of knowledge about politics. Again that is connected to political education in schools. To make concrete policy in these areas, evidence is needed and that evidence must be built over longer periods. The general international experience is that the more younger people are informed about politics and the more they feel politics matters to their lives, the greater the chances of them turning out to vote are. That is very connected to political education in schools and to access to the polls.