Forty-first Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30 ============================================================ Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West I have the hard copy here and 75% of the speech is either an insult to Northern nationalists or is a mistake, and that is very problematic. The context of me saying this is the fact that the people of the North of Ireland have gone through very difficult times in the past 100 years - heart-breaking, devastating challenges over the past 100 years - but at the heart of the annoyance felt by Northern nationalists is the strong feeling that they have long been betrayed by the political establishment in the South of Ireland. There is a very strong belief running through people in the North of Ireland that in their time of need, there has never been or has seldom been solidarity from the South. There have seldom been efforts to really stand up for their interests and rights. That feeling of betrayal will be magnified in many ways by the words of the Minister of State on this. The Minister of State stated that she and her Government were reflecting on this issue. Reflection is good. I am a fan of reflection but reflection has to have some time limit for when it is complete. The programme for Government in 2020 stated that this Government would introduce a Bill that would give voting rights to the people of the North of Ireland. We are six years later. The Government had already given the commitment and has not fulfilled that particular commitment. The citizens' assembly also voted by a majority that voting rights should be given to the people of the North of Ireland. On foot of the Aontú Bill tabled initially, Sinn Féin tabled a non-binding Bill in Stormont that was supported by the majority of MLAs. Opinion polls have shown that there is support for this. Maybe there is reflection but maybe there is reflection in an effort to be in a position of paralysis and not actually do anything about this. Voting rights for the diaspora is a completely different project to voting rights in the North of Ireland. I am in favour of voting rights but with regard to saying that a person in Johannesburg should have the same right to vote as a person in Forkhill, that a person in Buenos Aires should have the same right to vote as a person in Belcoo or that a person in Shanghai should have the same right to vote as a person in Strabane, they are two completely different proposals and should not be lumped in together or even understood together. To understand them together completely changes what it is to be an Irish citizen. The Constitution and the Good Friday Agreement state that a person, as in the Good Friday Agreement, has a right to be an Irish citizen. All I am saying is that because of that inherent right, it should be fulfilled in their rights to have a democratic franchise. That is what we are looking for with this. I accept and agree with the Minister of State on a point and I do not want to be totally negative on this. I agree there is a challenge in the functionality of whatever election is held in the future in terms of making sure we register people in the North of Ireland properly and that we have a facility whereby people are able to cast their votes properly. However, that is a challenge that is surmounted by 140 countries around the world in facilitating voting in an election outside of the specific jurisdiction. It is nothing new and has been happening for well over 100 years in many different places and there is an opportunity there. The Government also mentioned that reconciliation should happen before these decisions are taken and this is the mad thing. If I can have her attention for just a second, this is important. Reconciliation has happened pretty much 100% since partition in the South of Ireland. Most people who come from families who were unionists or loyalists in the South of Ireland are fully reconciled with the southern State. I do not know of anybody in the South who is from that original community and is not reconciled with their brothers and sisters, their neighbours or the State. In the North, it is the opposite. The Northern state has fossilised and petrified conflict. The Northern state, because it has been so wrong and unfair in how nationalists have been treated, has actually maintained the issues at the heart of the conflict and reconciliation is far more difficult in the North of Ireland. If you want to turbo-boost reconciliation, the way to do that is on an all-island basis. If you want to stop reconciliation happening, maintain the status quo . When Micheál Martin states reconciliation must happen before we enter upon this journey, his policy is to maintain the seeds of conflict in place and all the negativity that comes from that. In another aspect to this issue, back in 2018 I was the rapporteur for the enterprise committee and I was given the task of carrying out the first report in Leinster House on the all-Ireland economy since partition. I interviewed about 100 people from all different backgrounds in the North of Ireland from different communities including Catholics, Protestants, trade unionists, business people, farmers, people in the public sector, etc., and one common thing in all those discussions was that if we plan together, fund together and deliver services together, they simply will be better services and will be more efficient and cheaper to deliver. There is so much opportunity at the heart of the proposals we have for this particular Bill and for Irish unity. I am thinking of many of the Aontú representatives in the North of Ireland such as Gemma Brolly, a representative for us in East Derry, Liam Reichenberg in south Armagh, Roisín Mulgrew in Newry and all the people who represent Aontú in the North of Ireland. I am thinking of all the hard work they do on a daily basis to build positive relationships with their communities but also to further the objective of having a society that allows for equality among Irish citizens. The status quo makes one Irish citizen more equal than the others. I urge the Government to see this as a legacy issue. The Minister of State could go through governance for the next few years and in 100 years' time, what does she think the people will think about her Government? In 100 years' time, if Government passes a Bill such as this, that will be the issue it will be remembered for. This is a legacy-type Bill. This is a Bill that transforms a country's ability to include everybody on the island of Ireland. This is a Bill of significance, up there with the extension of the franchise to women and the extension of the franchise to people in 1918. This is a Bill of significant magnitude and I urge the Government to take it from us and run with it. Please do not let it get blocked by intransigence on Committee Stage and allow citizens in the North to use the next election in six and a half years' time to be the first election since 1918 where they can participate in their democratic franchise as equal Irish citizens. --- 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/2026-04-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-30