Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We have discussed this quite a lot and the overarching point I will make is that the potential the establishment of this commission will have to achieve all the objectives spoken about around participation of minorities, gender balance in our electoral process and making Dáil, Seanad and council chambers more representative of the people therein cannot be underestimated. It has immense potential. I do not want to be prescriptive or restrict the commission in trying to achieve that but at pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, the Oireachtas committee went beyond what we had tasked it with to bring in expert groups to give their opinion on it. That included the Irish Traveller Movement Pavee Point and many civil society organisations which had a strong role in shaping the Bill.

I am deeply politically committed to the commission having a strong role in ensuring we have an active, participatory democracy that is inclusive of everybody here. It currently is not. We know that, but it is still a good democracy and has potential. There is much more we can do. The advocacy function the commission will have has the power to transform over the coming years and beyond how we bring people into the political system and encourage them. In many cases, we are talking about the capacity of people to participate at a basic level of society. We have to address that at community level. For that reason, I think the commission will have an active role to play. Other actors will have a role to play in that regard as well. It is critical.

The Minister of State, Deputy Burke, is doing quite an amount of work on gender quotas. The See Her Elected campaign has been very successful and the Minister of State has funded that. We want to see a transformation in the 2024 local and European elections of all political parties and the candidates they put forward regarding gender and variety of backgrounds. It is critical that all of us, particularly political parties, have a significant role in that. I think we all want to see that.

Amendments Nos. 27 to 29, inclusive, proposed by Senators Moynihan, Hoey, Sherlock, Wall, Higgins and Black, propose legislating to task An Coimisiún Toghcháin with carrying out a range of research projects. As I have mentioned previously, I am conscious of an coimisiún's independence and have avoided being prescriptive in the Bill in requiring it to conduct particular pieces of research. Notwithstanding this, the programme for Government proposes several items of research for an coimisiún and I intend to request that an coimisiún consider these from the outset. These include researching the potential for expansion of postal voting and the Scottish experience of lowering the voting age. Increasing voter turnout and participation in our democratic processes has been a priority for me in the preparation of this Bill. In this regard, an coimisiún's public education and public information functions empower it to work to increase public awareness of and participation in the State's electoral democratic processes. While I intend that an coimisiún will have autonomy in deciding how to fulfil its role, I envisage its work will have an emphasis on under-represented groups.

Under section 63, an coimisiún will set its research priorities via annual research programmes. These programmes will be subject to consultation with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The committee will have the opportunity to interact directly with an coimisiún on shaping research priorities via consultation on the development of research programmes and through six-monthly progress reports provided by an coimisiún to the committee.

In respect of the extension of the franchise, the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Presidential Elections) Bill 2019 was published on 16 September 2019. The proposal in the Bill seeks to extend the franchise for presidential elections to Irish citizens resident outside of the State. While the Bill lapsed on the dissolution of the Thirty-second Dáil, the Government restored it to the Dáil Order Paper in support of the commitment in the programme for Government to holding a referendum on extending the franchise at presidential elections.