Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

It is welcome to hear the Aire Stáit's passion and interest in this area. I have something in common with him, in that I spent a lot of time having discussions with my poor dad. He did not agree with me on anything. Perhaps if we had done an exchange at that stage, there might have been more in common.

I welcome the leadership that my colleague Aidan Farrelly has shown on raising this issue. I also welcome the young people in the Public Gallery. I especially want to welcome the young people from the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, and BeLonG To. I will take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Mick Ferron on his recent appointment as NYCI director. Mr. Ferron is known well to me in terms of the Trojan work he has done for the last 20 years in Sphere 17 in Darndale in my and Deputy Mitchell's constituency. We are delighted to see him take on that role.

The crux of the issue is that, collectively in this Dáil, there is a strong view that voting and civic engagement are positive. I think we all have that view. We all value our democracy and we want to see as much civic participation and engagement in the political process as possible. That is absolutely fundamental in a democracy. A weakness in our democracy is when we have low levels of engagement and low levels of participation. We know that the current situation, where there are low levels of participation, which can happen in particular cohorts or particular communities where people feel left behind, is not healthy for our democracy and we want to have that addressed. The evidence shows very clearly that, where a younger voting age of 16 is introduced, it leads to higher levels of engagement and participation in the years thereafter when people go to vote. One gets higher levels of turnout. All of us want to see higher levels of turnout and we are in agreement on that. That is what this would do. It really is a win-win measure for democracy, civic participation, engagement and safeguarding our democracy. The more people who are involved, the more who are engaged and the more who are looking at what we are doing and holding us to account - everyone in government, everyone in opposition and every different party, including the Independents - then the stronger our democracy and the better the outcomes will be for everybody. That is what it boils down to.

Climate change, housing and the lack of investment in public transport often affect young people the most. Having the voice of young people in the political system through voting will help to bring about change in core areas that will benefit all of us. It will help to get more pressure to have the action we need on housing, the action we need on addressing climate, the action we need on mental health, and the action we need on investment in public transport. Getting that younger participation through voting will drive critical change. That will be good for all of us.

In Scotland, we have seen how this has worked. We have seen the research from Scotland and other countries on how this has worked and is successful. As the Minister of State said, if there is a fear that this leads to different outcomes, the research shows it does not. Would it not be great if everyone voted centre left because they were young? It turns out, however, that young people vote centre left, left, centre right and everything in between, the same as the rest of the population.

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