Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Bill 2020: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2020-11-10
============================================================

Fintan Warfield (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

My next two points refer exactly to this Bill, and, in fairness, they were touched on by Senator Byrne. If Irish citizens in the North are entitled to vote across five vocational panels, then surely Irish citizens should be allowed to choose their university or higher education constituency. Mention was made of Queen's University, and I am thinking of St. Mary's University College, Ulster University, the Open University and Stranmillis University College. As I read it, that would require an amendment to section 7 to remove "in the State".
I would also like to see an amendment to allow anyone who has achieved a level 5 qualification a right to choose to elect Senators from the university and higher education constituency. We will be supporting this Bill, but the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Government must bring forward the Seanad Bill.

---

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/seanad/2020-11-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-11-10