Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There seems to be an assumption because we have tabled an alternative motion that I, Fine Gael and the Government are somehow against extending voting rights to Irish citizens living outside of Ireland. I have direct and extended family living in Washington, the UK, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and other places. Lots of other people in this House could say the same. There are many Irish people who consider themselves just as Irish as we do who are living in different parts of the world. It is almost an Irish tribe spread across every continent, whether they are working on the missions, running a business or something in between.

I have long advocated that we should find a way to extend voting rights for presidential elections beyond these shores and I am still committed to that. When Fine Gael was in opposition I produced a very detailed paper on the issue. From what I can remember, it was put together by the Brussels branch of Fine Gael which had a vested interest in the issue. We are going to do this and as the Minister with direct responsibility for the issue, I am personally committed to doing it but I cannot and will not agree to a motion which is pinning us down on some of the issues that need and deserve consideration.That is the only issue I have with the motion which proposes the implementation of the recommendation by the Constitutional Convention to give citizens resident outside the State the right to vote in a presidential election, which is pretty definitive, and that we would indicate the timeframe envisaged for holding any such referendum. We do not even know how it is going to work yet. I can only answer for my own tenure in this Department and I can tell the Senators that the section of the Department dealing with this issue now is not a lazy section of my Department. It will have an options paper ready for me before the end of the year and we are going to make decisions on this early in the new year. If the Seanad or the Dáil is going to make a statement that we are going to extend the right to vote in presidential elections to citizens who live outside Ireland, then we need to make damn sure we have answers for them when they ask how it will work, where they will register, whether they qualify or not, what is the distinction between who should and who should not qualify, whether there are thresholds, whether they must have lived in Ireland, whether there is a time limit with regard to when they left Ireland, whether they vote by post or show up at an embassy and what is to happen in countries where there is no Irish embassy. These are valid questions. Until I have the answers to these questions I would be foolish to announce that we are going to proceed with this in 2019. We would be leading some people up the garden path and as Minister I am not willing to do that. I am committed in principle to extending the franchise of the presidential elections but before we confirm that by voting in the Oireachtas, and are therefore committed to achieving it, I would like to know how we are going to do it and how long it would take us to put in place a proper, robust system we can trust to make sure we deal any with issues of voter fraud or mistakes that may genuinely be made. We need to know the potential costs and the resources required in embassies to deal with these issues. That is what our amendment is about. We are calling on the Government to expedite its consideration of the recommendations of the report of the Constitutional Convention giving the right to vote in presidential elections to citizens who are resident outside the State. We are committed to progressing this issue. I am committed to doing it, along with a whole load of other things going on in my Department at the moment. It is being prioritised along with the other issues. I would say that we will be in a position, within the next quarter or so, to actually have a much more detailed proposal for decision and consideration. That is where we are coming from.

There are some issues that are party political and some issues that are driven by ideology, but we need to understand the complexity of the issue to make decisions and to come to a consensus so we can all agree on a way forward to extend the franchise. It is the most fundamental thing one can do in a democracy. We ask for a little time. If Senators come back to me at the end of the first quarter of next year and we do not have something then they would have fair cause for concern and criticism. This is the first time I have spoken on this issue in either House. I give a commitment that we are going to progress it as a priority but I need a little bit of time, regardless of what has happened to date. I was in Government and I accept responsibility for previous Government decisions, but with regard to this Department and the prioritisation of this issue I can only take responsibility for my own tenure.

I have a speech here, some of which might be helpful to read into the record, but I would rather talk straight on this issue rather than giving a long dissertation on what the Constitutional Convention said or did. On our commitment to progressing it, the Taoiseach has also made a number of statements or commitments in that regard. I know the Taoiseach is taking it seriously because he has asked for a briefing. He has set a timeframe around my delivery of an options paper to him and to Government. This issue is moving forward. I am not yet ready to support the motion put down by Senators which commits to a timeframe and to implementing the recommendations of the Constitutional Convention as is. We may bring forward a variant of that, having done some of the work the Constitutional Convention may not have been able to do. For example, it is my understanding that the Constitutional Convention recommended that we should extend voting rights in presidential elections to Irish citizens outside the State, but it also recommended that in order to qualify people would have had to have resided in the State at some point. That is my memory of what the convention said. We need to understand that and tease it out. Obviously, there is a special relationship and situation in the context of citizenship in Northern Ireland. This also needs to be teased out and understood to respect the people who have Irish citizenship, and who want Irish citizenship, and their qualification rights around extending the franchise.

I have sensed the impatience here and I can understand some of that. Some people are operating under the motto that, "We need to be radical or redundant". Radical is one thing, but one must have an implementation plan in order to be credible. We do not have that now. For us to pretend that we have the answers and to give a commitment on which we cannot supply details would, in my view, be irresponsible. That is why we propose the alternative motion.

I ask Senators to give us a little time to come forward with some of the practical arrangements needed to turn an idea and a commitment into reality, along with the timeframe for doing it. If I am honest, it is very difficult to envisage this being done for 2019. This is the information I am getting back from our team in the Department. It does not mean it cannot be committed to long before then, with a view to getting it right the first time the franchise is extended after 2019. I will have a lot more detail on it and the evidence to back it up, which is the important thing, in the not too distant future. That is the basis of the approach on which we hope to get agreement from a majority in the House when the vote takes place later on.