Billy Lawless (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On Monday, I met Irish emigrant campaigners and leaders in London. They are seeking to secure the vote for Irish emigrants in next year's proposed referendum on voting rights for the Irish abroad. I look forward to working with the many emigrant groups to help win this referendum that the Government has proposed for May 2019. The Taoiseach and Government are committed to getting this referendum over the line. As I told my London audience, we will have to fight for every vote. We will seek to expand the home to vote movement for the third time in four years. We will put together a modern, 21st century political campaign to overcome the old-fashioned, 19th century attitude about who has the right to vote.Opponents of the extension of voting rights will rise up and say that such people left Ireland, do not pay taxes here and are not connected to Ireland and if they vote in large numbers, they will swamp the home vote. However invalid those arguments may be, we must be ready to counter such concerns. It should be noted that our opponents always seem to forget that Thomas Clarke, who was the heart and soul of the Easter Rising, was a returned Irish emigrant and an American citizen.