Aontú Party leader Peadar Tóibín says his party will submit a bill to the Dáil which, if successful, will extend the Presidential franchise to Irish citizens in Northern Ireland.
According to the Irish News article on the story…
“A new bill allowing Irish citizens in Northern Ireland to vote in the Republic’s presidential elections would be “historic,” the Aontú political party has said.
Party leader Peadar Tóibín announced he had submitted the bill to the Dáil, with details announced at the socially conservative party’s Easter 1916 Commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin.
Around one million Irish citizens in Northern Ireland are not eligible to vote in the elections, but Mr Tóibín said this can be changed with the “39th Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025.”
The BBC article on the same story further elaborates that
“Tóibín said that under the current law, more than one million Irish people living in Northern Ireland are not eligible to vote in the election.
“The Good Friday Agreement confirmed that people born in the north of Ireland have a right to be an Irish citizen,” he said.
“Indeed, currently nearly 700,000 people in the north of Ireland have exercised that right, are Irish citizens and hold an Irish passport.”
He added that Irish citizens in Northern Ireland have a “right to stand in the election” to be the President of Ireland but under the current law, “the Irish state refuses them the right to vote”.
The Aontú leader said the “power to grant” Irish citizens the right to vote in presidential elections in Ireland was “not held by the London government”.
“It is not held by the Stormont Executive. It is in the gift of the people of this state and the Dáil,” he added.
“It is this government that is preventing the full Irish nation voting as one for the first time since 1918.”
The BBC article reminds us that the 2013 Constitutional Convention backed extending the franchise, but twelve years have elapsed since then with no progress. Former Tánaiste Simon Coveney was quoted last year as saying that the reason there has been hesitancy in extending the franchise to northern voters is a fear among the parties established in the south that it could aid in the election of President with roots in Sinn Féin…
“Some politicians in the Republic of Ireland fear allowing Irish citizens in Northern Ireland to vote in presidential elections would result in a Sinn Féin president, according to the former tánaiste.
Speaking in favour of extending the franchise, Simon Coveney said others “shy away from this decision because of political reasons”.
During an event hosted by the Kennedy Summer School on Saturday, he said: “They are not enthusiastic about this because of self-interest in terms of party political interests and so on.”
“I think that is the wrong way to look at this.”
It is currently unknown if the bill has a chance of becoming law though given it is an opposition submitted bill, the prospects are far from certain.
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