Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have been having this debate since the 2013 Constitutional Convention. We have been discussing the issue regarding extending voting rights for Irish overseas and citizens outside the State for many a long decade. It is amazing we are so far from other changes to voting rights, from Catholic emancipation in 1829 to extending voting rights to women, and now we are still debating extending the right of a citizen to vote in a presidential or Seanad election so many years later.

The number of people we are trying to include in the proposal to extend voting rights to citizens outside the State is equal to the cities of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Dublin and Galway combined. This shows how much of a democratic deficit we have in the State. The most fundamental right of any citizen in any state is the right to vote. Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution declare many people living outside the borders of the State are Irish citizens and part of the Irish nation, but we do not extend the right of franchise, which is a fundamental expression of citizenship, to many of our citizens as defined by our Constitution.

It is three years or more since the Constitutional Convention had its meeting and produced its fifth report, yet the Government has not moved forward, other than to say there are issues of a technical and legal nature. To put it mildly, in the year of 2016 this is disgraceful. The fact it has also not come up with solutions but problems and does not have a real and practical roadmap is a failure of the Government to extend the rights of citizens in terms of the right to vote.

We are in poor company, in that of the 33 members of the Council of Europe only four do not extend voting rights to citizens outside their borders, with Cyprus, Malta and Greece being the other three and Ireland, regrettably, being part of the club of four. More than 120 of 196 countries give some form of expression to their citizens living outside their borders and they are allowed to vote. In France, 12 seats in the Senate are ring-fenced for the diaspora. In Portugal four out of 120 seats in Parliament are given over to the diaspora, which accounts for 20% of the electorate.

There are imaginative ways in which this can be done. Senator McDowell's Seanad Reform Bill is one of the imaginative reforms that would allow voting rights to be extended and ensure there is a voice for the diaspora in the House. The election of first citizen, the person who embodies the nation and its views on the world, is the very practical and real expression of how it should work fundamentally. What we are asking today is where is the roadmap and where is the vision.

We speak about our Proclamation, which was read in the four corners of the island throughout 2016, and it states it cherishes all the children of the nation equally. Where is the tangible proof we actually do this? Surely there is no more tangible proof the Government cherishes all the children of the nation equally than giving them the equal right to vote and the equal right to be heard, whether it be in the election of their President or extending voting rights to citizens living outside the State. Bear in mind, of course, that by happy accident we do extend voting rights to citizens who live outside the State, but one requires a university degree to vote for the six Seanad university seats.However, a person without a university degree is excluded which, in a republic, is not satisfactory and needs to change.

The Government amendment to the motion basically suggests it will consider the recommendation. It has taken the Government three years to just consider it. Has nobody found the shelf on which the report has rested?