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Various proposals have been considered since the 1980s to extend the franchise in Irish presidential elections to citizens resident outside the state. In 2019, the then government introduced a bill to amend the constitution to facilitate this extension. The bill lapsed in January 2020 when the 32nd Dáil was dissolved for the 2020 general election, but was restored to the order paper in July 2020.
At present, the only nonresident voting rights in Ireland are for university constituencies in Seanad Éireann and certain public servants posted abroad.
At present, Article 12.2.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads:
Every citizen who has the right to vote at an election for members of Dáil Éireann shall have the right to vote at an election for President.
Dáil Éireann is the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) and Article 16.1.2° of the Constitution states:
i | All citizens, and | |
ii | such other persons in the State as may be determined by law, | |
without distinction of sex who have reached the age of eighteen years who are not disqualified by law and comply with the provisions of the law relating to the election of members of Dáil Éireann, shall have the right to vote at an election for members of Dáil Éireann. |
The relevant law is section 8 of the Electoral Act 1992, which provides that, to be eligible for the electoral register for a given Dáil constituency, one must be:
The Electoral Act 1992 is an ordinary act of the Oireachtas which can be amended by a subsequent act of the Oireachtas; the Constitution can be amended by act of the Oireachtas but subject to approval of the electorate at a referendum. Ministerial orders are secondary legislation which the Oireachtas need not approve. It would be possible to give nonresidents the vote in both Dáil and Presidential elections by amending the 1992 act, but limiting the nonresident franchise to presidential elections would require a constitutional amendment.[2]
The Irish diaspora is large and the question of voting rights for emigrants and other expatriates has arisen continually since the 1980s. The Oireachtas committee on the constitution considered the matter in 2002; it recommended no extension of the franchise, but that among the senators nominated by the Taoiseach should be "a person or persons with an awareness of emigrant issues".[3]
The Constitutional Convention established in 2012 was directed to report on several issues, including "giving citizens resident outside the State the right to vote in Presidential elections at Irish embassies, or otherwise".[4] It considered the matter at its plenary meeting on 28–29 September 2013 and recommended allowing expatriate citizens to vote. It made some more detailed discussions, voting as follows:
Restrictions:
Restriction | Percentage | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
All Irish citizens resident outside the island of Ireland | 36 | ||||||||||||||
Just citizens who have lived in Republic of Ireland | 26 | ||||||||||||||
Just citizens who have lived in Republic of Ireland as adults within the last...
|
27 | ||||||||||||||
Undecided/No opinion | 11 |
Although the Fine Gael–Labour coalition government was supposed to give an official response in the Dáil within four months of receiving the convention's report, it was not until January 2016 that Ann Phelan said it was "committed to undertaking … analysis" of the "complex and inter-related issues" involved in the recommendation.[5] It had already responded in March 2015 to a European Commission communication on "the consequences of disenfranchisement of Union citizens exercising their right to free movement", saying "policy, legal and practical issues" on diaspora voting should be considered by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of State with responsibility for diaspora affairs;[6][7] in October 2015, Paudie Coffey said this work had begun.[8]
In 2017 the government formed after the 2016 election accepted the convention's 2013 recommendation, published a position paper listing seven options for eligibility criteria and associated implementation measures, and promised a constitutional referendum on whichever option it would select, to be held in May 2019 alongside the local elections.[9][10] The seven options were:[9]
In February 2019, the government decided that, due to the urgency of dealing with Brexit, the referendum would be postponed until October; it also agreed that the proposal would be "an extension of the franchise to all citizens resident outside the State, including citizens resident in Northern Ireland".[11] The text of the bill was agreed by the cabinet on 11 June,[12] and the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Presidential Elections) Bill 2019 (bill no. 68 of 2019) was introduced in the Dáil by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Simon Coveney on 16 September 2019.
The bill proposed to amend the constitution in three places:
Irish constitutional amendments require a referendum. The required Referendum Commission was established on 26 September, chaired by High Court judge David Barniville.[14]
The 2019 bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil on 14 January 2020, prior to the general election on 8 February. The election manifestos of Fine Gael[15] and Sinn Féin[16] supported nonresident voting in Presidential elections. It was restored to the order paper in July 2020.[17]
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