David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

A number of the candidates received unfair treatment from the media and this played a central role in the presidential campaign. The media must reflect on how it values the role of the presidency and how it approaches future presidential elections.

We support the motion but add that it is far from the only reform that needs to be made as regards the presidency. We have no difficulty with amending the nomination process. It needs to be done. It would have been a scandal if candidates who wanted to put their names forward were not in a position to do so. Some of them had genuine difficulties trying to get the requisite number of signatories from Oireachtas Members to allow them to stand. At one point it looked like some of them, who went on to get a respectable vote in the presidential campaign, may not have had the opportunity due to the strict and narrow nomination process. That process needs reform. The best place to examine and tease out how to change the process while protecting the Office of the Presidency is the constitutional convention and that is why I support the motion.

Sinn Féin tabled its first Private Members' Bill last November which dealt with the presidency. We raised a number of issues then that we also asked the constitutional convention to deal with. One is that all Irish citizens would have a vote in the presidential election. That would mean extending the vote to citizens who live in the North of Ireland and it would include people who see themselves as Irish, British or both. In our view every citizen or person born on the island of Ireland should have a vote in the presidential election. Eery citizen who lives abroad should also have a vote in the presidential election. Ireland would not be on its own in this regard as many European countries allow their citizens to vote in presidential elections. Recently the Czech Republic held a presidential election and people queued in order to vote.