James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputies for raising these important matters. I welcome the opportunity to update the House on behalf of the Government. The Government is not opposing this motion. However, I would like to make a number of points in respect of each of the proposals raised in the motion, which might warrant further consideration by the House.

In relation to voting rights, it should be noted that to extend the franchise at presidential elections to our citizens resident in Northern Ireland would require the holding of a referendum to amend the Constitution. In this regard, I am going to propose as set out in the Forty-first Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025, which was published by Aontú on 17 June last. In the event that any such referendum on extending voting rights at presidential elections was held and approved by the people, it would then fall to me, as the Minister responsible for electoral legislation, to bring forward appropriate amendments to our electoral laws to give practical effect to the constitutional change. Such legislation would need to include provisions covering issues such as registration of voters from Northern Ireland, the method of voting, for example, postal voting or otherwise, and a constituency where voters would vote, for example, a separate or reserved constituency for the purposes of collating and counting the votes from Northern Ireland. These are all important practical considerations.

By way of some background, the Fifth Report of the Convention on the Constitution, published in November 2013, recommended that citizens resident outside the State should have the right to vote in presidential elections. While 73% of the members of the Convention on the Constitution voted in favour of extending the right to vote in presidential elections to our citizens in Northern Ireland, at a separate vote a total of 78% supported the right for our citizens resident outside the State, irrespective of particular jurisdiction, to vote in presidential elections. I note that the Private Members' Bill does not propose to address the latter.

In response to the evolving needs of our society and its relationship with the wider Irish diaspora, in March 2017, the Government at the time agreed to accept, in principle, the main recommendation in the Fifth Report on the Convention on the Constitution that Irish citizens resident outside the State, including citizens resident in Northern Ireland, should have the right to vote at a presidential election and that a referendum would be held to seek to amend the Constitution to give effect to this. Over several years, my Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade worked closely on this issue and on 16 September 2019, the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Presidential Elections) Bill 2019 was initiated in Dáil Éireann by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs to facilitate the holding of a referendum on this important issue. However, as Members will recall, with the advent of Covid-19 and the ensuing restrictions that arose in response to the pandemic, the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the Thirty-second Dáil on 14 January 2020. Notwithstanding the lapsed Bill, I am aware that on 24 June 2025, a Private Members' motion was tabled in Dáil Éireann calling for the extension of the franchise in presidential elections to those living in Northern Ireland. The Government did not oppose the motion and during that debate, the Minister of State with responsibility for international development and the diaspora confirmed that the Government was reflecting on this important matter.

In relation to freedom of information, as Deputies are aware, section 42(h) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014 provides an exclusion of the Presidency from freedom of information. The Office of the President is subject to a separate and discrete Vote of its own. The Vote of the President, which covers all expenditure of the Office of the President, in agreement with the Oireachtas, is subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General and its expenditure is subject to examination by the Committee of Public Accounts. Therefore, the perceived gains of subjecting the Office of the President to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act may not outweigh the potential risk of injuring the independence or apoliticality of the Presidency.

I should emphasise that the annual accounting financial reporting arrangements for the Office of the President are managed in the same way as the expenditure arrangements for other public services Votes. As is the case with all Government Departments and many other public service offices and agencies, each year, in the course of the Estimates process, the Office of the President engages with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to establish its budget for the forthcoming year. The detail of these allocations is made publicly available when the Estimates are published at budget time. In addition, the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach scrutinises the allocation to the President's establishment Vote as part of its consideration of the annual Estimates. The management of the day-to-day expenditure over the year under the various subheads in the Vote falls to the personnel in the Office of the President who are subject to public financial procedures and audit controls in the same way as everybody else. Expenditure on the President's Vote is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and it is reported annually to the Committee of Public Accounts for examination in the usual way.

I also note for the House that the management, upkeep and maintenance of State properties and expenditure in that regard are a matter for the Office of Public Works, which, I am sure Deputies will agree, does a fine job with so many of our historic buildings around the country. The annual accounting financial reporting arrangements for the OPW are the same as for other Votes. In short, there is nothing to suggest that there is a particular value added in any other arrangements being applied uniquely to the Office of the President in respect of financial accounting and reporting.

In relation to the candidate nomination process, similar to the position with regard to the extension of voting rights at presidential elections, proposals to amend the candidate nomination process for election to the Office of the President would require an amendment to Article 12.4.2 of the Constitution. If such a referendum was successful, it would be necessary for me, as the Minister responsible for electoral legislation, to bring forward appropriate amendments to the Presidential Election Act 1993, as amended, to give practical effect to the constitutional change. In this regard, it is important to note that we now have an independent statutory Electoral Commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin. Ireland's independent Electoral Commission was established in February 2023. An coimisiún's research, advisory and public information function enables it to carry out research on electoral policy and procedure. It is also empowered to advise and make recommendations to the Minister and the Government in relation to any proposals for legislative change or any other policy matters concerning electoral and legislative proposals.

I thank the Deputies for raising these important issues and for providing me with an opportunity to inform and contribute to this debate.

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