Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senators Warfield and Ruane for bringing this Bill forward. Democracy, as we have known it, is under threat. Governments are out of touch with their citizens and the gap between the citizen, particularly disenfranchised groups such as 16 year olds and 17 year olds and others who are marginalised or not heard, and their governments is fertile ground for the activities of the likes of Cambridge Analytica and its paymasters in the UK, the US and elsewhere. It is truly disturbing.

Having a committee in order to kick this Bill into touch is exactly the kind of antic which turns ordinary people off because they have no idea what it means. They do not know what happens in such processes and they see whatever comes out at the other end as just delaying the Bill. We need to find ways of combatting the manipulative, shadowy forces which are at work and to act urgently to make governments, including our Government, connect to the citizens they seek to serve. One of the changes needed is to expand the franchise and to ensure that everyone is truly heard. That is why I am supporting the vote at 16 Bill today. Let us remember the people who will be given new voting rights if this Bill passes are often already old enough to drive, and until recently to get married, to join the Army and pay income tax. The current state of affairs is taxation without representation, which is something we are all supposed to be against.

If we reflect on the decisions made in these Houses over the past decade, it becomes abundantly clear that the voice and input of young people were absent and that young people bore the brunt of the great recession, as well as the one before it. Their views, their perspectives and their realities were not reflected in these Houses and we were out of touch with them. The ESRI states that one quarter of young people suffer from at least three of the following: income poverty; unable to afford basic goods; financial strain; poor health; mental distress; poor housing; overcrowding; neighbourhood problems; mistrust in institutions, including this one; and lack of social support or feeling safe. In 2012, youth unemployment was over 30% and while the Government has made great progress, today the rate is still twice what it was in 2007. Some 16,000 young people are still long-term unemployed and 90% of them said that being unemployed had had a negative effect on their sense of well-being.

To add insult to injury, jobseeker's allowance for young people was cut from €188 to €100, an act of unforgivable blatant age discrimination. With average room rents of €80 per week, and maybe more, thousands of young people are left with €20 to survive. Those in work face the exploitation of zero-hour contracts or often dangerous food delivery-type jobs. I look in horror at young people on the back of bicycles delivering pizzas and takeaways to the well-heeled. Very often they have no sick benefit if they fall off their bike and injure themselves and that is a huge dereliction of duty which disproportionately affects young people aged 16, 17 or upwards. This is the gig economy.

In this House there is the blight of the unpaid internship, which happens all over the place. Those who wish to study now pay the second highest fees in Europe and significant indebtedness is now the norm for young people. Care leavers have been left to drift with no support and millennials are the first generation to be poorer than their parents since the Great Famine of the 1840s. Security of tenure in housing and affordable housing, let alone owning a home, is beyond the wildest dreams of younger people these days. The least we owe young people is a say, a vote and a voice so that we do not make the mistakes that put young people in that position.

Reducing the voting age could be truly transformative as it is real political reform which would lead to meaningful change, especially at local level. A lot of 16 year olds and 17 year olds are still living at home and it would be transformative in their own communities. I hope we are not too late for the 2019 local elections and we need to act now, support the Bill today and reject any attempts to delay, committees or otherwise.