Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We all know about the first time voting experience and that people who are brought to their first vote by their parents, more traditionally, are much more likely to vote throughout the lives. On the other hand, it is much more difficult to encourage those who are not registered and who do not vote to engage in the democratic process.

The vast majority of young people want to vote but they do not know that they need to register to vote and even when they are aware they find the current system baffling, bureaucratic and cumbersome. They cannot understand why in 2014 that they have to print and fill in forms, get them stamped at a Garda station and post them to their county and city councils when in almost every other aspects of their lives it can be done online. Effectively, we are putting obstacles and barriers in their way rather than supporting them to get registered.
Organisations such as the National Youth Council of Ireland, the Union of Students of Ireland and SpunOut.ie have organised voter registration drives among young people. Their most recent was the voter registration day 2014, which centred around the 30 October deadline and focused on online and offline engagement to get young people registered to vote. I commend the organisations on what they did in that campaign. They were excellent and commendable initiatives but we should not be relying on civil society organisations with limited resources to ensure that young people can vote. We also need to point out - this was brought up at the Constitutional Convention when we examined lowering the voting age - the importance of including electoral voting, in particular, in school programmes.
On a more general note, I have heard it said in this House that often when somebody is seeking representation, TDs will check to see if somebody has voted. People do not realise that if one does not vote, one does not have influence. I am not getting into the merits or otherwise of that system.