Tairgim: “Go léifear an Bille an Dara hUair anois."
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I am delighted to be able to introduce this Bill in the House today. It is a good-news story. The Bill simply seeks to extend the democratic franchise, the right to vote, to all Irish citizens across the country in presidential elections. This is no small thing at all. Enfranchising 1 million Irish citizens is massively important. It is historic in many ways. This Bill would have significant consequences. To put it in context, the last time we saw a Bill affecting the franchise on this island at this level was in 1918. The last time that any legislation was passed to give the right to vote to a section of Irish citizens across the country was over 100 years ago. Indeed, the last time Irish citizens in the North of Ireland got a chance to vote in an all-Ireland election was in 1918. That is an incredible fact.
This Bill should not be underestimated. I ask the Minister of State to imagine circumstances in which she, as a passport holder and an Irish citizen, did not have or was denied the right to vote in a presidential election. Imagine if it was not just her but also her family and entire constituency that was refused the right to vote in a presidential election. I imagine she would be furious. She would see that as a massive attack on and affront to her democratic rights. Yet, that is exactly what is happening in the North of Ireland at present. Hundreds of thousands of citizens who were born in Ireland, who live in Ireland, who play Gaelic games and who hold Irish passports are refused the right to vote. In many ways, this is an affront to the Good Friday Agreement, which states that citizens in the North of Ireland have the right to Irish citizenship.
The Good Friday Agreement has been in place since 1998 but we still have not implemented the spirit of it in the intervening period. I ask the Minister of State to imagine the sheer joy of Irish citizens in the North of Ireland if they were able to cast a vote in an all-Ireland election for the first time since 1918 and the sheer joy she would afford them if they were allowed to do so. Shockingly, a person from the North of Ireland can campaign in a presidential election. They can put their name forward for election as President. They can win a presidential election. They can actually be the President of this country, but they cannot vote in presidential elections. Mary McAleese is the perfect example in this regard. Would the Minister of State deny Mary McAleese's Irishness? Would she say that she is less Irish than she or I because of where she was born and raised? I am sure the Minister of State would not do so.
Yet, in a legal and democratic sense, we do exactly that to well over 700,000 passport holders in the North of Ireland. Irish citizens from the North of Ireland can join the Irish Army. They can fight and die for Ireland but they do not have the right to vote in a democratic election on the island of Ireland. That is an affront. It is wrong and it needs to be changed.
The legislation that we in Aontú have put forward is not a zero-sum Bill. Often, we talk about the constitutional situation in the North of Ireland as, when nationalists gain something, it in some way takes a right from our unionist brothers and sisters. This Bill does not do that in any sense. It does not remove anything from our unionist brothers and sisters. It simply adds to the rights of Irish people. On most of the constitutional questions that we discuss, debate or converse on in the Dáil, we talk about not having the ability to do it. However, the crazy thing is that the power for this change lies not in Westminster or Stormont, but here in Leinster House. It is we who can make the change in law to create the constitutional right for people to have a referendum on this issue. This is in our gift. If there is a wrong in relation to people not being given the right to vote in the North of Ireland, that wrong lies on the shoulders of the people here.
It is over 100 years since the Irish Boundary Commission. If the Minister of State knows her history, she will know that the Boundary Commission was just one in a long list of bitter blows against Northern nationalists in terms of participating in Ireland. It shut the door to Northern nationalists playing a democratic role here. Surely, it is now time, 100 years later, for us to open that door to these citizens to be able to vote in this country.
From what I know, Fine Gael supports a united Ireland. It is my understanding that every party in this Dáil currently supports a united Ireland. For some people, Irish unity is for some time in the future. For Aontú, we support it now. The majority of Irish citizens, when polled, say over and over again that they support a united Ireland. This Bill does not even go that far. It is an incremental step along the way, but it does not go that far.
My understanding is that the Government is not going to oppose the Bill on Second Stage. I welcome that. It is wonderful that the Government is not going to oppose it. I urge the Government to join in a cross-party effort to speedily get this legislation through the Oireachtas in the next year. Sometimes, it is the practice of the Government not to oppose something that is popular. We often see that the best way for a Government to say "No" is to say "Yes" and then do nothing about it. My worry is that this Bill will get through Second Stage but then languish just before it gets into committee. In other words, the Government majority on a committee will simply not facilitate the Bill moving to Committee Stage to allow it to proceed. If that happens, it will be absolutely shocking.
One of the barriers to this Bill - it is the same as the barrier to a united Ireland - is that some political parties see these steps as a threat to their own party interests. Some political parties put their party interests ahead of the national interest on these issues. Before partition was introduced, Liam Mellows stated that if partition was introduced, two establishments would grow on either side of the Border that would depend on the Border for their power and the removal of the Border would threaten their ability to govern, and so it has come to pass in many ways.
If we are honest, there are those in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who see this Bill, if it were in place, as preventing them from having the opportunity to win a presidential election. Maybe 700,000 voters from the North of Ireland would plump for a Sinn Féin candidate and, therefore, make it more difficult for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael to win a presidential election. It has always been Aontú's view that the reason Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are reticent about Irish unity is that they are regional political parties. They are not national political parties. They do not represent Irish people in the North of Ireland. Therefore, in a general election, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's representation in an all-Ireland Dáil would shrink and they would be less likely to be able to form a Government. If that is the case, it is wrong. It is wrong for an individual political party to put party political interests ahead of the national interest. I urge the Government to make sure that is not the case. If that is the Government's fear, the democratic right to vote should not be dependent upon the outcome of an election. The right to vote, the franchise, should be independent of that outcome, whatever it should be. As a democrat, I think the Minister of State would agree with that premise.
Right now, Sinn Féin in the North of Ireland is not doing so well politically. According to the opinion polls, its support is at its lowest in five years. Northern nationalists now have much more opportunity to vote for other political parties, such as Aontú, than they did before. It is not a given that 700,000 voters in the North of Ireland would plump for one political party.
This Bill has the potential to create a dynamic in all-Ireland politics that we do not even understand. Through legislation like this, some people from a Protestant, unionist and loyalist background would be attracted to also vote in a presidential election. People from a unionist background might vote for Fine Gael. They might feel that Fine Gael is the logical party to vote for in such a situation. There is no guarantee that only nationalists would vote in a presidential election. There is a growing number of people from a Protestant, unionist and loyalist background in the North of Ireland who, because of Brexit, have become frustrated with the so-called United Kingdom and are now more interested in the opportunities that a united Ireland could provide, or at least an all-Ireland democracy could provide. That situation could very easily develop if this Bill were enacted.
If a small political party like Aontú can function in the North of Ireland, form cumainn and compete in elections, and if the Green Party and People Before Profit can do likewise, why can the Government parties not do it? Why can Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil not represent people in the North of Ireland? Fianna Fáil was very close to doing so once when it opened a cumann in Queen's University. It planned to open further cumainn in the North. Mark Daly and Éamon Ó Cuív were suspended from Fianna Fáil for landing in Omagh to officially declare a candidate in an election as a Fianna Fáil candidate in the North of Ireland. Unfortunately, under Micheál Martin, that move towards united Ireland politics has reversed significantly. Hopefully when Micheál Martin retires, Fianna Fáil too will open cumainn in the North and contest elections. That is the solution to this. Without any change in the law, all political parties could create an all-Ireland dynamic by simply standing for elections in the North. We have a moral responsibility to represent all Irish people in Ireland and not just a segment of people in the North. This is important for the Government's future development. A united Ireland is coming. There is a growing demographic change in the North of Ireland. There is a growing section of the Protestant, unionist and loyalist community in the North who have an interest in Irish unity. Due to Brexit, there are significant changes happening.
In Stormont, Westminster and local elections, the number of nationalist votes is increasing year by year. It is in the long-term interest of the Government parties to contest future elections in the North of Ireland. This Bill is an historic opportunity. It is an opportunity to build a democratic country, North and South, and realise the objectives of many of the founding fathers of the Minister of State's political party. There are many debates around this issue. The key debate, however, is how it is just or moral that an Irish citizen one mile south of the Border can vote in a presidential election while an Irish citizen one mile north of the Border cannot vote in that same presidential election. This is a very simple Bill that does not remove any rights from any section or community in the North of Ireland. It is a Bill that adds. It is an additional human rights Bill. It is an additional democratic Bill for people in the North of Ireland.
When we talk about the North and presidential elections, many people say there are more important things at the moment, in terms of the cost-of-living crisis, housing and healthcare.
I would say "No", actually. There are urgent things in life and there are important things in life. There is an urgency to the cost-of-living crisis, to housing and to healthcare, but over the 100 years development of this country, it is in our national interest to be able to organise on an island basis. It is in our national interest in terms of developing a bigger economy and a more efficient public service. The Border is like a wall with 1,000 blocks. Each of those blocks is impeding development North and South, whether it is spatial development, healthcare development, such as an all-Ireland ambulance service, or educational development. Universities are working in some cases with their backs to each other. Incredibly, we are still spatially developing this country with our backs to each other and at a cost to each other.
People say there is an economic cost to all this. I say the people in Dundalk are just as hard-working as the people in Newry, the people in Dungannon are just as enterprising as the people in Monaghan and the people in Derry are just as hard-working as the people in Letterkenny. The key ingredient that is missing is self-determination: the ability of the Irish people to make decisions for ourselves for the betterment of this country.
