Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this report and appreciate the work involved in producing it, particularly the work of my colleagues Deputy Crowe and Senator Reilly, who are members of the committee, and Ms Lynn Boylan, MEP, who gave evidence to the committee.

On behalf of Sinn Féin, I welcome the recommendation of this report that voting rights be extended to Irish citizens living abroad and that a voting system that would work in an Irish context be designed. I would be concerned if people outside were of the view that this issue was being considered in the context of its impact from a party political point of view. That is not the case. This is not about political parties or political party interests.

While the report was drafted by the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs following a communication and recommendation from the European Commission which criticised Ireland’s disenfranchisement of citizens living in other EU countries, it is impossible to ignore the wider context and to take voting rights of Irish citizens living in another EU state in isolation. This report, although welcome, is nothing new. We have heard all it has to say before on several occasions. What was missing previously and, I fear, will be missing now is action from the Government. The Government needs to take this issue seriously.

Sinn Féin believes in the core republican principle of equal citizenship and, therefore, the right of Irish citizens living in the North and abroad to vote. We have campaigned on this issue for many years. We unequivocally support the right of all Irish citizens of voting age to vote for the Irish President, regardless of where they are living. Furthermore, we believe that Irish citizens living outside this State should have the right to appropriate representation in the Dáil by way of reserved constituency, with voting rights subject to presentation of a valid passport and regular registration requirements. We also argue that they should be entitled to representation in a reformed Seanad. It was mentioned previously that this would be difficult to administer. However, it is currently being done in many other countries.

In this debate, too many people are ignoring that not only can Irish citizens abroad not vote but citizens on this island living in the Six Counties cannot do so. 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 so wish. We should not be treating those people as second-class Irish citizens. They are not second-class citizens: they are Irish citizens who should have full voting rights. Equality should never be compromised. We should be building an inclusive Ireland rather an exclusive one. We should be reaching out to everyone on this island, including Unionists, and asking them to join our political process. We are a family on this island.

The failure to extend voting rights to citizens in the North arises, I would argue, out of the deeply partitionist mindset of successive Governments. We need to open up our minds and move on from this. In September 2013, 78% of members of the Constitutional Convention voted in favour of giving citizens resident abroad a vote in presidential elections and 73% voted in favour of giving such a vote to Irish citizens resident in the North.

In March of this year my colleagues Deputies Gerry Adams and Seán Crowe brought forward a Bill which would have granted presidential voting rights to citizens in the North and abroad. While the Bill was accepted, it was said that it would have to be put to a referendum, but there has been no move to establish that referendum - more Government inaction. There is a huge demand among Irish citizens to amend Bunreacht na hÉireann to give Irish citizens in the North and abroad the right the vote. The Government needs to face up to this democratic demand, which was overwhelmingly supported by the Constitutional Convention. We need to end this practice of depriving Irish people of the right to influence their destiny and our destiny. Do we fear Irish citizens who live abroad or in the North?

I note that the report mentions that eventually a case may be taken to the European Court of Justice challenging the restriction on voting rights, following which this Government would be forced to act.

We should not wait to be told by the European Court of Justice that we are infringing on the rights of citizens; we should act.

A total of 115 countries have systems in place to allow their emigrants to vote, so we are not reinventing the wheel. I do not accept that we should shy away from it because of the complexities surrounding the issue. It has been done before in countries all over the world. We should ensure we catch up with best international practice.

In Sinn Féin’s policy paper on the global Irish, we detailed our support for the introduction of appropriate diasporic parliamentary representation in the Dáil by way of reserved constituency, with a valid passport and regular registration requirement, as well as representation for citizens in the North. Both Northern and diasporic citizens should also be represented in a reformed Seanad. Citizens who are resident outside the State should also have a vote in presidential elections. We suggested that postal voting for those living outside Ireland, which could be done through the relevant embassies and consulates and made subject to appropriate safeguards against electoral fraud, would be the best system for voting. Through technological advances, our citizens living overseas-----

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