Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and for the Bill to go through the various legislative steps and processes. There are ten of them all together before it would have to be signed into law. I am sure it could look just spiffing if we were to allow it got to go through all of that and to get the robust review and examination that any legislation should. We will certainly support it.

There are a number of areas of the Bill we think are very welcome. The voting age is something the Labour Party agrees on and we fully support. The National Youth Council of Ireland, the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, ISSU and many other organisations, such as the youth wings of many political parties, including the Green Party, have all been campaigning for the franchise to be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds for local, national and European elections. I understand that there will be constitutional elements involved for some of the elections but while I am open to correction, my understanding is that it would not require a referendum for certain elections. We have seen this in other parts of Europe for the local or municipal elections and for the European elections. I was in Berlin in recent days doing some cross-party work in the embassy there and I talked to a number of people about the impact voting at 16 had on their electorate. I am open to correction, but I think it was Lower Saxony that introduced it in 1995. Some parts of Germany have reduced the voting age to 16 for quite some time. A number of pieces of research have been done in Germany on whether lowering the age to 16 and 17 has increased political participation further into people's lives. Obviously those who were 16 and 17 in 1995 are not out of the woods, as it were, yet the initial research has shown that, first, it has increased participation and, second, that the participation continued in their late 20s and throughout their 30s. We are for democracy and we always hear parties and others lamenting the involvement of young people in voting and they say that young people do not come out or get involved in anything but that it is always left to everyone else and that young people just complain. This seems to be a proven piece to first encourage young people to get involved in politics and in having their voices heard, but it seems it then increases voter turnout and participation further into their lives. It seems to be a win-win to me. We will certainly support that particular element of the legislation.

The proposal to have free transport on polling day is great. When I was in the Union of Students in Ireland, I co-ordinated our response to the general election in 2016 and we also did it again for the marriage equality referendum. We did voter motor, where we drove people up and down the country. People were getting lifts from Donegal across to Dublin and then they were going from Dublin to Waterford and Waterford to Cork. We were linking people up all over the place. It would probably have been a little bit easier had public transport been available. We have seen those kind of get-the-vote-out campaigns in all sorts of elections and referendums. While they are great fun, it should probably just be the case that people can access public transport. It would be welcome for people to be able to access public transport rather than us shipping people around the country in cars. Not to be twee or contrite about it, we did make public transport free for the day of the Pope's visit so we should perhaps consider making it free on polling days also.

We also support the review of the electoral franchise of Seanad Éireann. Our former Seanad colleague, now Dáil colleague, Deputy Bacik, spoke on it and was involved in that process. Those of us who have come a little later to the Seanad are also incredibly supportive of that. We keep talking about Seanad reform. I remember when I was in the student movement, it was put to us whether we would take a stance in favour or against campaigning for the Seanad.The student movement decision on it was not unanimous, because that would have been madness, but the leadership of the student movement decided to campaign to keep the Seanad. It was very much spoken about, however, in the context of reform. I assure Members that I did not know I would end up in the Seanad when I took that stance. To me, the two issues were always linked.

It strikes me that Senator McDowell said that if this passes, we would do no such thing and there would be no reform. The spirit of that referendum for many people was that there would be reform. It is disappointing. It has been 11 years and there have been multiple elections since then but that reform has still not been seen. It is great that it is included in this Bill.

Last, regarding the issue of freedom of association and expression for civil society organisations, much like my colleague, Senator Warfield, we agree with it in principle. However, there are obvious areas that we would like to see teased out on Committee Stage. There is no good in us just saying we agree or disagree in principle. We would like to be able to get into the nuts and bolts of this legislation properly on Committee Stage.

The Labour Party will be supporting this Bill regarding extending the franchise, transport to voting and reform of the Seanad. In the last few seconds that are remaining to me, I want to shout-out to Tomás Heneghan, who has done a huge amount of work for civil society in Ireland in finally getting that case to where it needs to be. This, hopefully, will push the Government to enact that legislation, which is exactly what the people voted for long before I was a twinkle in anyone's eyes.