Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am against these amendments and consider them to be quite serious in the substance of their aims of, in the event of Brexit taking place, removing the right of UK citizens to vote in, or stand for, European Parliament elections in this country. It would be the first time in the history of the State that the franchise is restricted as opposed to extended. History, generally speaking, has been of franchise being successively extended under pressure of struggle from below. We hope that continues to be the case, for example, with 16 year olds being given the right to vote. These amendments set a dangerous precedent in restricting franchise, in particular for UK citizens being carved out of the right to vote in European elections post Brexit.

Our starting point is that everybody who lives here and is affected by the decisions that are made here should have a right to vote in all elections that elect those who make the decisions that affect people's lives. That is our starting point and it is, obviously, not on the table here. From that point of view, the idea of removing the right to vote in European Parliament elections from British citizens represents a further step away from the position we should be in. It is an undemocratic and anti-democratic move.

Politically speaking, post Brexit, it should be the approach of the Irish Government and, for example, a future Jeremy Corbyn-led UK Government, unilaterally to grant rights to citizens of other countries. A Corbyn-led Government in Britain should unilaterally grant rights to EU citizens in the UK and, similarly, the Irish Government should unilaterally grant rights to British citizens here.

Otherwise, this has the potential to start a tit-for-tat process in restricting the rights of British citizens in Ireland and those of European citizens in Britain post Brexit which would, again, be a dangerous situation to get into. We think we should be democratic and continue with a situation where British citizens who live here continue to have the right to vote in European Parliament elections post Brexit. The 2016 census showed that UK citizens here are the second largest non-Irish national group, with the Polish community being the largest. UK citizens would easily be the largest minority group if one includes those who might also hold Irish citizenship.

The Government claims in its justification for this position that, legally, British citizens cannot continue to have the right to vote in European Parliament elections here. I do not think that is the case. The European Court of Justice has dealt with this issue before in Case C-145/04, Kingdom of Spain v. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This related to the right to vote in European Parliament elections for Commonwealth citizens residing in Gibraltar but who did not have citizenship of the Union. The court's summary judgment stated:

In the current state of Community law, the definition of the persons entitled to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament falls within the competence of each Member State in compliance with Community law. Articles 189 EC, 190 EC, 17 EC and 19 EC do not preclude the Member States from granting that right to vote and to stand as a candidate to certain persons who have close links to them, other than their own nationals or citizens of the Union resident in their territory.

[...] it does not follow that a Member State is prevented from granting the right to vote and to stand for election to certain persons who have a close link with it without however being nationals of that State or another Member State.

Clearly, UK citizens who live in Ireland have a close link with this country. The European Court of Justice has already ruled that we are not prevented from allowing them to continue to vote in European Parliament elections post Brexit, despite not being nationals of an EU member state.

I do not believe the Government's legal justification is well-grounded. The European Court of Justice has clearly ruled on this issue already. Accordingly, in that context, this is a political decision. We should make the political decision to continue to allow British citizens to vote here as opposed to moving to restrict the franchise in this way.

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