Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis na Teachtaí ar fad a ghlac páirt sa díospóireacht tábhachtach seo. Chuir Sinn Féin an Bille seo chun tosaigh mar go bhfuilimid ag iarraidh deireadh a chur leis an gcaoi ina bhfuil imircigh agus Éireannaigh sna Sé Chontae in aicme eile.

Sinn Féin firmly believes in the core republican principle of equal citizenship and we therefore support the right of all Irish citizens of voting age to vote for the Irish President regardless of their place of residence. We also seek to reduce the voting age to 16 to energise and mobilise young people to engage with the political system. Some speakers asked earlier why we would want to do that and I would point them to the example of the recent Scottish referendum and the energy that young people in Scotland brought to that campaign.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an scéal nach mbeidh an Rialtas ag cur i gcoinne an Bhille seo. However, the Rialtas needs to work urgently and actively towards ending the disenfranchisement of Irish citizens. Many speakers spoke positively about the Constitutional Convention, which was warmly welcomed by Members of this House and by the majority of Irish citizens. However, the Government missed deadlines in issuing responses to recommendations from the convention, refused to hold referendums on many of its recommendations and held a referendum on the future of the Seanad without the support of the convention.

Many felt it treated the convention as a talking shop. We know that in January 2013, the first ballot of the members of the convention saw delegates vote in favour of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. In September 2013, 78% of members of the convention voted in favour of giving citizens resident abroad a vote in Presidential elections, and 73% voted in favour of giving Irish citizens resident in the North a Presidential vote. The Government should have faced up to the democratic demands of that convention to end this disenfranchisement. We still believe there is a need for those referendums. While I welcome the Government's acceptance of this Bill, the onus is on it to move it forward and not bury it on Committee Stage, as it has done with other Opposition Bills. The Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, spoke earlier on. To use football parlance, he has the ball. What decision will the Government take? Will the Minister of State stay in his own half or will he move the ball forward? People want us to move this issue forward.

Speakers mentioned the difficulties relating to this. Yes, there are challenges, but challenges can be overcome. This is the approach I would like to see the Government adopt. It is done all over the world. I do not see why it cannot be done in Ireland.

Last month, I spoke here in support of a Bill introduced by Deputy Stanley to extend voting rights to 16 and 17 year olds. Again, this issue has been ignored, and it does not seem to be going anywhere. In July 2013, the Government gave a commitment to do this. The then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, said that the Government committed to holding a referendum before the end of 2015 on a proposal to amend the Constitution to provide for a voting age of 16. I suppose it is relevant to ask what has happened since then. Clearly, the Government has reneged on its promise. Again, while the Government supports the Bill today, I am calling on it not to renege on this commitment.

The Good Friday Agreement states that this Government recognises the right of all people born in the North to identify as Irish citizens if they want. We should not be treating them as second-class Irish citizens but as full Irish citizens with full voting rights. Again, it was voted for by the Irish people. We are talking about an inclusive Ireland rather an exclusive one. It is reaching out to everyone, including Unionists. Some speakers say that people would not use the franchise. We must ask them and we must give it to them. There is a similar proposal in Cyprus. The Cypriot Government will give the opportunity to vote to people on the northern, Turkish side. It is about reconciliation.

Many citizens in the diaspora actively contribute to the economic, social and cultural life of Ireland from afar in the form of remittances or investment, active support of the peace process or participation in and promotion of Irish heritage and culture through philanthropic, community and voluntary activities, language, arts and sporting organisations. The diaspora is a fundamentally important part of the Irish nation in both historical and contemporary terms. Extending voting rights and allowing the Irish diaspora to express their democratic voice is one of the inclusive actions that the Government can take to help improve and strengthen its relationship with the diaspora. It is not a one-way street. Many people would say that Governments in the past have seen the diaspora as just a cash cow. It is a matter of pulling those people in and embracing them.

A total of 115 countries have systems in place to allow their emigrants to vote, so we are not reinventing the wheel. It has happened in other countries. Deputy Hannigan spoke about how the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs had heard from representatives of other Governments and how it is learning from them. Again, I ask that we move this forward.

I also call on the Government to do more in its efforts to get legalisation for the undocumented Irish. This comes on the back of a video conference that many of us were involved in today with the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, ILIR. People ask what that has to do with this country. It concerns the diaspora and is probably the big issue in respect of those 60,000 to 70,000 people living in the US. The message that came across was that the Government lacks a plan or a worked-out strategy relating to the undocumented Irish. The ILIR has sent a letter to the US ambassador to Ireland requesting that he adopt a more flexible approach and waive the three- and ten-year unlawful presence bars for undocumented people in the US, not just the undocumented Irish. US embassies in Mexico, Venezuela and many South American countries have adopted this flexible, proactive and inclusive approach to those presenting in the embassies. Given that we are approaching St. Patrick's Day, we ask that this be part of our strategy, and that we formally ask the embassy to adopt this position. We ask that when Irish Ministers travel around the US they deal with this issue and lobby formally rather than just patting people on the back. The ILIR thought a formal submission had been made, but only recently learned that this was not the case. Again, the ILIR argues that this is long overdue. We all know the story of Irish people who are trapped in the US and cannot come home for important events such as funerals, deaths and marriages - all the happy and sad times. It is something positive that the Irish Government could do coming up to the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. It is not about problems; it is about problem solving. Clearly, if we approach these issues in that manner, we can resolve the issue of the diaspora and how we embrace its members and involve them more in politics and Irish life. That is what we all want to see. The argument used against giving the vote to 16 year olds could have been used against giving women the vote. Women would not know anything about politics or economics. The same argument is being put forward in respect of 16 year olds, who in many cases are probably more clued in than many of us older people.

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