Stormont backs call for Irish Government to end democratic deficit and give Derry citizens right to vote for President

Transcript

00:00Twelve years have passed since 2013 when the Constitutional Convention in Dublin

00:06voted overwhelmingly, indeed by a margin of 78%, in support of extending the

00:12franchise to Irish citizens living both in the north and abroad. And that was a

00:17very important recognition of the reality of hundreds of thousands of

00:21Irish citizens living here in the north of Ireland and also the vast Irish

00:25diaspora which populates the globe in North America, Australia, the European

00:30Union and elsewhere. That position has been further endorsed by all the main

00:36parties in the southern state but due to a lack of progress on the proposal to

00:41hold a referendum Sinn Féin brought legislation to the dial in 2014 to give

00:48effect to the recommendations of the Constitutional Convention and its

00:53recommendations on presidential voting rights. In 2017 the Irish government

00:58agreed to a referendum to amend Article 12 of the Irish Constitution to meet its

01:04obligation but no progress. This Assembly knows well the promise of the Good

01:09Friday Agreement, an international treaty voted on by the people of this island

01:13north and south. It guarantees the right of all the people of the north to

01:17identify and be accepted as Irish, British or both. That right is not conditional, it's not

01:23partial, it is absolute. But recognition without rights is hollow. Today in 2025 our

01:29citizens in the north in places like Newry, Belfast and Derry cannot vote for

01:34their own president. They can stand for election as president but they cannot cast

01:38a vote. That is a democratic deficit, it is unacceptable and it needs to change.

01:43It should be uncontroversial to say that everyone living in Ireland should have the right to vote for

01:48the Irish president but this obviously isn't the case. 700,000 Irish citizens in Belfast, Derry and

01:54across the north are being denied their basic democratic rights and elections on this island.

01:59This shows flagrant disregard for the will of Irish citizens north and south. As we've heard over 70% of

02:06members of the 2013 Convention on the Constitution believe residents in the north should have the right to vote

02:12in presidential elections and the suggestion that people in the south don't care about the north.