Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I note that he has never had to fight a Seanad election. I hope he never has to. Fianna Fáil welcomes the Bill. We were the only party to fight for the retention of Seanad Éireann. We did so on the basis that it would be reformed. That is why we welcome this Bill. We will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage. We have a number of issues with the Bill. My colleagues in the party will outline their concerns with the reduction in the number of seats that will be allocated for Members of this House, the Dáil and the local authorities to vote on. We will tease that out on Committee Stage.

The issue that we welcome most in the Bill is the proposal that people who have Irish passports and who are living overseas and who were born in Ireland or in the North would have the right to vote in a reformed Seanad as well as those who are currently on the electoral register. I note that the Minister of State pointed out the differences between the Manning report and the Bill as proposed. Again, if we are talking about people who have no right to vote in a Dáil election and have a right to vote in a local authority election, this would afford them the opportunity to have a voice within a Chamber of the Oireachtas. That is something we will look at.

The core of this Bill on which I wish to speak today is the issue of giving a voice in this Chamber to those who are living overseas and in the North of Ireland. The Minister of State has outlined some of the numbers. Depending on who is doing the counting, there are 1.2 million Irish passport holders living overseas. I have also seen figures of 700,000 and 800,000. Of course, there are also those who are living in the North with Irish passports. There might be an issue of whether they would have those passports in their possession. Since Mr. Ian Paisley Jnr. has called on people to get as many Irish passports as they can, I am sure we will see the number who would be eligible to vote in the Seanad election from that jurisdiction increase.

The Minister of State, Deputy Joe McHugh, was talking about extending the franchise in presidential elections to those overseas. There will be a parallel and twin-track process on the register if we manage to get these two huge reforms passed. The principle of the issue is that the most fundamental right of any citizen in any nation is the right to vote. Those who have Irish passports are counted as citizens under Articles 2 and 3 of our Constitution. They are Irish citizens and yet we deny them the vote. If we add up the number of people who in the North and the number living overseas who have Irish passports and who were born in Ireland, it is the equivalent population of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick cities combined. Imagine that. We do not allow that number of people to vote and yet they are citizens under our Constitution.

When Daniel O'Connell fought for Catholic emancipation more than 180 years ago, the idea of Catholics having a vote was outrageous to the establishment.When the suffragettes fought for women to have the vote, the establishment and the commentariat thought it was outrageous. The end of civilisation was near at hand when Catholics were given the vote, and then women were given the vote. In Derry, the people marched for one man, one vote.