Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----despite having signed up in 1998 to the Good Friday Agreement. It is shameful. Again it shows that the man cycling around the Ring of Kerry does not think things out. He does not attend this Seanad. He does not care about Northern Ireland. I would be trying to build bridges and extend the franchise. We are not a rotten borough. We have 55,000 in the constituency and 40,000 in the diaspora. It is an international university. It had these rights honoured by every Taoiseach since the Constitution was enacted. The Minister of State's Taoiseach is the one who is withdrawing them and that is shameful. He cannot simply say that we might give these people a vote for the Presidency sometime in the future. This is like people saying that when women did not have a vote, the solution was to abolish the Parliament. I would like everyone in Northern Ireland to have a vote. Why abolish the right for those who have a vote? It is a shame that the Minister of State does not appear to have consulted the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Northern Ireland Assembly about this. This is an Oireachtas that has allowed people both to be here from Northern Ireland and to vote for this House from Northern Ireland, and that is being swept away.