Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

recognises that:

— there is a need to reform the presidential election nomination and voting process, to ensure all Irish citizens living north and south are entitled to vote for the President of Ireland; and

— future healthy robust campaigns should facilitate a competition of values and ideas, and a diverse range of candidates who will provide democratic choice for citizens;

notes that:

— currently Irish citizens who live in the North of Ireland can stand in a presidential election, campaign in a presidential election, win a presidential election, be the President of Ireland, but cannot vote in a presidential election;

— Irish citizens in the North of Ireland, are recognised by the Good Friday Agreement, hold Irish passports, live in Ireland, but cannot vote in an Irish presidential election;

— affording Irish citizens in the North of Ireland the right to vote in presidential elections does not remove one right from our unionist brothers and sisters;

— 700,000 Irish citizens in the North of Ireland are disenfranchised in presidential elections;

— 73 per cent of the participants of the "Fifth Report of the Convention on the Constitution - Amending the Constitution to give citizens resident outside the State the right to vote in Presidential elections at Irish embassies, or otherwise", voted in favour of giving Irish citizens in the North of Ireland the right to vote;

— opinion poll research has suggested that 49 per cent of voters do not feel represented by the current presidential election system, and 55 per cent of voters believe that the Constitution should be changed to make the nomination process easier;

— there is a lack of transparency around the Office of the President and Áras an Uachtarán, and these institutions do not have the same level of transparency which applies to Government Departments and State agencies; and

— the Constitution and the law set out the nomination process by Oireachtas members, County Councils, and the nomination by an incumbent, and these rules make it difficult for a prospective candidate to get onto the ballot paper; and

calls on the Government to:

— commit, within a period of two years, to enacting Aontú's Forty-first Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025 or similar, in order to grant voting rights to Irish citizens living in the North of Ireland during presidential elections;

— repeal Section 42(h) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014, which exempts the President from the mechanisms of this Act;

— introduce, within the next six months, legislation which would mandate the publication of an annual report by Áras an Uachtarán, which would detail all costs associated with the entertainment of foreign guests and dignitaries hosted by the President, all costs associated with foreign travel by the President, costs associated with the running of Áras an Uachtarán, including decoration, repairs, and refurbishment costs; and

— amend the law to allow 14 Oireachtas members or more, 110 county and city councillors or more, or three county or city councils, or an incumbent to nominate a presidential candidate.

I am delighted to be able to table Aontú’s second Private Members' motion in this House. This is a significant motion. It is one of the biggest reforms of the presidential election and Áras an Uachtarán in the history of the State. It tackles three areas of real importance.

First, this motion tackles the shocking democratic deficit in the presidential election that we are all witnessing at the moment. So many people are angry at the presidential election farce that is unfolding, and frustrated at being locked out of the presidential election campaign. If implemented, this reform would open up the presidential election nomination process to ensure that a larger number of candidates, more representative of the people, would be able to participate in an election campaign. It would allow for the democratic competition of ideas, where the best ideas would percolate to the top.

In most elections, the people pick the representative but it is not the case in a presidential election. In council, Dáil or European Parliament elections, people can enter their name on the ballot if they reach a certain criteria in relation to how to get onto it. However, that is not the case here. The presidential election has an extremely high threshold. A threshold which is basically giving the power to the Oireachtas and councils to decide who even gets on the ballot. We in Aontú have a very simple proposal. Let the people pick the President. Let the people decide who should be elected President, rather than the political establishment.

If we look at the current system, it was built in 1937, at a time when there were two and a half political parties in the State. We are now in a very different situation. We now have a multi-party, diverse political system where those two legacy political parties are now small minority parties. When I say two legacy parties, I should really say one legacy party - the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael party - still has major control over the development of the presidential election. That is really unfair.

Not only do we have a very strict legal threshold but in this election we have also seen a very strict political approach. In previous elections, the political parties were very liberal in the ability given to their councillors to nominate individuals for the presidential election. In this case, we had one of those parties imposing a diktat, a whip on their councillors, and another of those parties intimating that thou shalt not select anybody else in this particular election. That is a major difficulty.

That has significantly reduced the routes to nomination for this presidential election and has caused major problems. The result is quite shocking. If we look at opinion polls, 49% of voters say they do not feel they are represented by the current presidential election candidates. Some 55% of voters believe that the Constitution should be changed to make the nomination process easier. The resultant election campaign has been a curated election campaign, and half the population is locked out of it.

The polls show that many people are not likely to vote and that a significant number of people will spoil their vote. One of the polls shows that Maria Steen would have achieved 22% of the vote in the election, and yet she has not been allowed on the ballot. That should be a wake-up call for the political establishment.

The political establishment should be shocked that people are disengaging from the political process to such a level. However, it is not a shock and the political establishment has said little or nothing about the disaffection of people from the political process. It may be in the interest of the political establishment that the electorate is disengaged from this particular election. After the election, we will have people who will decry that it was shocking that such a low level of voters turned out and that there was such a low level of engagement in the political process but, in reality, the political establishment has engineered a low engagement and low turnout in that particular election.

In the political establishment, many people decry the polarisation of the political system in this country. However, the only way to tackle the polarisation of the political system is to show that the parliamentary political system works and to show that it works, we need to convince people that their voices will be heard loud and clear here, that their vote matters and that they have a choice. We need to convince people that they are at the table of the representative democracy that is meant to exist here. However, that is not the message that has been sent out over the past while in terms of this election.

The reality is every single party, bar Aontú, is happy enough for the system to carry on regardless, for them to plough on regardless, and that they get the results they want. That shows the bubble that exists in Leinster House and that the anger and frustration that exists outside of Leinster House is currently only being articulated by Aontú.

Our motion looks for common-sense changes to the political system. We look for a referendum to be held within three years to amend the Constitution to reduce the Oireachtas threshold to 14 members, to reduce the council threshold from four councils to three and to create another pathway to nomination, which would allow for 110 councillors across the country to sign a nomination paper. There would be four pathways to nomination because, obviously, the incumbent President is also allowed to nominate in an election situation. That would make a real difference and allow for a larger ballot. It would allow for a real choice, and a functioning democracy.

I note that People Before Profit has put forward an amendment that seeks a fifth way for people to get on the ballot and that is with 35,000 signatories. I have no problem with the idea of 35,000 signatories selecting or nominating but the only problem I have with it in practical terms is how could we confirm each one of those nominations to be real if it is not done in person, and that would be seriously difficult?

The other significant reform Aontú is looking for in this particular motion is, in many ways, a revolutionary step. We are looking to give the right to vote to Irish citizens North and South. We are looking for equality between Irish citizens North and South. Incredibly, Irish citizens in the North can stand for President and campaign in a presidential election. They can win the presidential election and be this President of this country, but they cannot vote in the presidential election. That is an incredible disparity in any democracy that functions in the world. A person in the North of Ireland is an Irish citizen and an Irish passport holder. He or she is recognised as such by the Good Friday Agreement, but is still not allowed to vote in a presidential election. In effect, that means we have a two-tier citizenship in relation to this country and it is undemocratic. It is against the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.

Imagine for a second the absolute joy that would exist in the hearts of Irish citizens in the North of Ireland if they could cast a vote in an all-Ireland election for the first time since 1918. That would be a significant step forward for most people in the North of Ireland and indeed for the Irish nation as a whole. That gift is not in Westminster. It is not decided by Stormont. It is decided by this House and then by a referendum of the Irish people. Why are we withholding that opportunity?

Some people might say they have heard the Government say things are very serious in the North of Ireland and we do not want to rock the boat and we have to be careful. Míchéal Martin can think of 100 excuses why we should not take any steps towards Irish unity. He even says we need the unity of the Irish people before we have the unity of the territory.

Does anybody think that the unity of the Irish people is more likely in the United Kingdom than in a united Ireland? Why is it that sectarianism is rife in the North but not in the South? Is it because sectarianism is part of the UK and part of the partition of this country? The reality is that if we want to move beyond sectarianism and unite the people, we must first unite the territory. We need to ensure we make this decision. It is not a zero-sum decision. We are not taking any rights from our unionist brothers and sisters in enabling a vote for Irish citizens in the North of Ireland. There are currently 700,000 Irish people in the North with Irish citizenship. They are being blocked by this Government.

There is often a difference between talk and action in this place. Every political party has said openly that it supports the Aontú proposal to give citizens in the North of Ireland the right to vote. Opinion polls show that a majority of people on the island of Ireland seek this measure. We have launched a Bill, which has passed First Stage, to achieve this particular objective. A motion was passed in Stormont recently. A majority of MLAs put forward the same proposal, that is, that people in the North of Ireland would have the right to vote. That is significant. It is not unusual internationally. Countries allow votes in presidential elections to citizens outside the existing jurisdiction of control. This measure would bring this country into alignment with many other western democracies. I believe it is beyond time for that to happen.

People ask me why it is not happening. I do not mean any disrespect to the Minister because he probably has sympathy for this proposal. There is, however, an instinct in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that if there is an all-Ireland presidential election, they will not be able to win it because we would be introducing 700,000 new voters, many of whom might vote for all-Ireland parties. The first thing to say is that it is wrong to prevent democracy because you do not like the potential result. The second thing I will say is that we should fix that situation. Fianna Fáil at one stage did stand in an election in the North of Ireland and had a cumann in Queen's University Belfast. I say to it: become an all-Ireland party and build across the island. Unity should begin at home and in the functioning of a political party. That is important.

This motion seeks to achieve another important objective, namely, transparency. Incredibly, the Office of the President is one of the few public offices in this country that is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. In fact, section 42(h) specifically exempts Áras an Uachtaráin from the provisions of the Act. The Aontú motion seeks to repeal that provision and open the office to the same level of transparency and scrutiny as the Minister is under. Why should he have more transparency enforced on his actions than on the Office of the President? Incredibly, any citizen of this country can request, under the freedom of information provisions, copies of the Minister's briefing notes and emails, and inspect his work, but is insulated from requesting them from the Office of the President. Our motion would ensure that would be introduced in legislation within 16 months. It would also mandate the publication of the annual report of Áras an Uachtaráin and give all the detailed costs in relation to the entertainment of foreign guests and dignitaries hosted by the President, all the costs associated with foreign travel by the President and all the costs associated with the running of Áras an Uachtaráin, including decoration, repairs, refurbishment and costs. This is a basic request and it is incredible that it is not in place already.

What we have before us is important. There will be hullabaloo because one of the most undemocratic elections in the history of State is happening at the moment. There will be a lot of talk today about giving citizens in the North the right to vote in this election. There will be talk on the issue of transparency. My worry, and this is important, is that if we do not act now, in four, five or six months' time, this interest in taking action will disappear. Nothing will be done for six or seven years and we will be up against the next presidential election in exactly the same space, with no change achieved. That would be wrong. That happens in the political system in this country. It often closely follows the media cycle. When people ask me who is the most powerful Minister in the country, I say it is Joe Duffy because if it is not a crisis in the media, it is not a crisis in here. Ministers do not seem to be interested in something unless it is consuming the media cycle. Let us make sure that we act now on this reform. It offers a solution to the democratic deficit that exists in the presidential election. It democratises the system and gives citizens an opportunity to stand in the presidential election. It gives elected representatives more power in the selection of candidates. It stops the blockage of candidates by political parties that, for their narrow self-interest, want to keep other candidates out of the system. It revolutionises the situation in this country and allows citizens, North and South, to vote. It does not go as far as Irish unity, but takes a step towards it without costing anything to our unionist brothers. It would be a major step forward in all-Ireland democracy. It would be celebrated for generations. It would be a fine legacy for the Minister's party and Fine Gael. It opens up to transparency the Office of the President. It would shine the light of transparency into all aspects of our government. I urge the Government to support the Aontú motion.

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