Irish outside 26 Counties to get vote in Presidential elections

Posted by Jim on July 17, 2016

A referendum to give Irish people living abroad a vote in the
presidential election is planned for 2017, diaspora minister Joe McHugh
announced this week.

As things currently stand, Irish people who have emigrated abroad are
unable to vote in parliamentary or presidential elections or in any
referendum that takes place in Ireland.

It is understood a referendum to rectify this for presidential elections
is being planned for the first half of next year and is expected to
pass.

The move was widely welcomed as a first step towards restoring votes for
emigrants and those in the North. Speaking on morning radio, Fianna Fail
diaspora spokesperson Senator Mark Daly said that the right to vote was
the most “fundamental right of any citizen”.

“We must stop denying that right to so many millions of our citizens,”
he said.

A Sinn Fein arty spokesperson said news of the referendum was a
“positive development”, and that a right to vote for people living
outside of the State must include people in the North.

“It is only right that we further enfranchise our Irish citizens
overseas and that we work to ensure they retain a tangible link with
politics and developments at home.

“This core right must be extended to Irish citizens who are living in
every part of Ireland.

“The Office of Uachtaran [President] is a hugely symbolic one and it
defies logic that someone from the north can become Uachtaran but not be
entitled to vote for themselves.”

Noreen Bowden, co-founder of Voting Rights Ireland, an international
coalition of groups campaigning on the issue, said that while the
referendum is welcome, it was “only a first step”.

“All Irish citizens need adequate representation in the legislative
process as well. Presidential voting rights will mean a lot to Irish
citizens abroad, but the movement for emigrant voting rights won’t stop
once that has been achieved.”

The 1916 Societies said that the proposed national forum to discuss the
implications of the ‘Brexit’ referendum should be extended to emigrants
and the Diaspora.

“We have written to all elected representatives to the major
institutions across Ireland, of our own initiative and independent to
the proposed forum, requesting that a national dialogue, inclusive of
all sections and strata of Irish society and extending also to the
overseas Diaspora, freely agree proposals for an independent and
all-Ireland republic to be approved in turn by the Irish people through
recourse to a national referendum.”