On September 29 2013 the Irish Constitutional Convention voted overwhelmingly (78%) to grant votes in Presidential elections to citizens living abroad.  The Convention is a consultative body set up by the Irish Government to report to it on specific issues; half of its members are citizens, and half are members of the Oireachtas (Parliament).  A majority of members (53%) voted in favour of restricting the right to those who have lived in the country at some point in their lives, and 57% supported a time limit of some kind for exercising the vote after leaving the country.  A large majority of 73% also voted in favour of extending votes in Presidential elections to Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland.

Read the Convention’s press release and the news report in The Irish Times. 

Read the pre-print version of the article ‘Should Irish Emigrants Have Votes? External voting in Ireland’ published in Irish Political Studies 26 (4) 546:61 (2011) and the Report for the Meeting of the Constitutional Convention by EUDO-CITIZENSHIP expert Iseult Honohan.