Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2023-04-19
============================================================

Ciarán Cannon (FG), Galway East

In regard to the very successful visit of President Joe Biden, there are times when visits such as this cause us all to reflect on the extraordinary power of our global Irish community. This is something we celebrate, and rightly so. The Minister and I have had a real, in-depth experience of encountering and working with that power and that community in so many different locations throughout this planet. However, we are hopelessly out of step when we seek to support our citizens in electing our first citizen - that person who best embodies who we are as a people, our President. We are hopelessly out of step with other countries in giving our citizens the right, no matter where they live on this planet, to elect our first citizen. When is it planned to hold that referendum that has been committed to in the programme for Government? It is about time that we gave recognition to those of our citizens, including those who live on this island, who cannot exercise that right.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-04-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-04-19