Reducing the voting age - I will come to this - is not the only solution to enhancing young people's participation in democracy, but when young people are informed about the changes happening, they make informed decisions. In addition to the electoral commission examining the important issue of reducing the voting age, we need to consider having a national commission on youth citizenship to examine how we can encourage young people to be citizens in society, which would not only include their voting rights, but also their acquisition of other skills.
For European Parliament elections, one of the two elections that would have its minimum voting age changed if this Bill were passed, a number of countries have lowered the minimum voting age in recent times.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 5,567 words from 14 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Robbie Gallagher and Mary Seery Kearney; Níl, Senators Fintan Warfield and Lynn Boylan.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Carried | 18–8 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2023-11-07, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.