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AT LEAST 25 TDs and Senators are voting No in the presidential age referendum, including one senior cabinet minister and several government backbenchers.
The referendum proposes to reduce the age at which a citizen is eligible to run for president from 35 to 21 and will also take place next Friday along with the same-sex marriage referendum.
A survey of all 225 Oireachtas members carried out by TheJournal.ie has found that 115 are voting Yes, 25 are voting No, and 6 said they don’t know which way they’ll vote. Four declined to take part and the rest did not respond.
The referendum is being held following a recommendation from the Constitutional Convention last year. Polls indicate that most people intend to vote No on 22 May and the government has been criticised for holding a vote on what few people believe is a pressing matter.
While Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin are supporting a Yes vote, Labour has decided not to take a position. However several government backbenchers in both coalition parties have told this website they’ll be voting No.
Labour’s Public Expenditure and Reform Minister Brendan Howlin says he will probably vote No and explained his rationale in a recent interview with TheJournal.ie:
In total, those who told us they are voting No include:
I don’t think a 21 year old would have the capabilities to run the office of the president.
Six Oireachtas members told us they were unsure which way they would be voting in the presidential age referendum, including:
I’m undecided for the presidential. I’ll probably go Yes as well, but I’m a bit undecided.
I think it’s ridiculous that the Government has chosen to hold a referendum on such a trivial issue.
A total of 115 TDs and Senators told us they are voting Yes in the presidential age referendum, including the Socialist deputy Joe Higgins who argued that the eligibility age should be reduced further:
Having an age qualification set at 35 is one of many barriers to getting on the ballot paper. When the referendum Bill on this referendum was in the Dáil the AAA TDs proposed amendments moving all ages for elected office to 18, allowing candidates get on the ballot by nomination of voters and an end to religious oaths for the presidency.
Fine Gael Senator Eamonn Coghlan said that while he might have an issue about a 21 or 22-year-old running for the presidency that’s not what the referendum is about.
“It’s giving eminently gifted academic, political and business persons in their early to mid 30′s the opportunity to run for this office. Equality applies here too,” he said.
Sinn Féin’s 26-year-old Senator Kathryn Reilly, who is the youngest member of the Oireachtas, said it is important that more young people involve themselves in the political process.
“It is so often lamented that young people are so disengaged from the important political decisions that affect their future,” she said.
The Presidential Age referendum must be about giving young people that sense of ownership in another branch of government and as with the marriage referendum, lowering the voting age is another act of equality, this time through political reform.
- with reporting by Órla Ryan
I’m sure they hear much worse in the playground
Thomas
So your position is that we need no standards as a means of protecting children? What sort of behaviour is that?
What standards are the present government setting by constantly lying about the so called recovery?
And your position is to cut their children’s allowance, cut teachers, cut everything, go away Sebastian
Better then removing mobility allowances from those who have a mental or physical disabilities Mr. Rodgers your pals in government have had no problem doing that….
Richard I like most right-thinking people would prefer my children to hear the word ‘bullshit’ uttered every now and then than to have their access to education and healthcare curtailed, and an unfair and unpayable debt put upon them for the rest of their days.
In fact bullshit, whether you like how it sounds or not, is a perfect legitimate English word that has its own specific meaning and connotations. And it’s the perfect word to describe the governments delusional narrative about success.
Conor…zzzz zzzz zzzz zzzz
Truthful open transparent government would be a lot more beneficial for these children. Watching Enda at his usual stuttering blundering stonewalling in Dail is a more worrying educational field trip for any child.
Richard ..lol lol lol TalkingS?nce lol lol lol blah blah blah mumble mumble ..lol lol lol whiter than white youse lot are .lol lol lol Zzzzzz zzzz zzzz lol lol lol
Dear god won’t someone, anyone, think of the children
am i having a wet dream or is my phone tapped in this state
Shock horror I’m sure the kids hear worse at home or on the streets. What about ministers of the government telling porkies or misleading the Dail is that not a problem?
No. Lies are fine. Stealing those very same children that were in the Dail’s future is fine too it seems. But, a four letter word is clearly going to kill them outright.
This is what we have.
This is the mentality. I suspect Sean Barrett files it under “Respect”.
Personally I can’t stand the man.
not to mention all the cuts to the children’s hospital, sure what does it matter if a few die as long as we pay back on those unsecured bonds
F@#ks sake that’s a load of b##@ox
nee naw nee naw nee naw hands in the air everybody its the fun police
You can’t swear when kids are present but you will pay millions of euros worth of tax income to silence all who dare seek recompense for being abused and neglected.. as kids.
Sean Barrett as Ceann Comhairle is stuck in the 1950′s. If we want the promised Dail reform we should start with him. At a time when a huge amount of people are struggling and the country in unsustainable debt and bankrupt – this guy is more concerned with the clothes Ming and Wallace are wearing and the bad language!!!!
We don’t need petty small mindedness from him of all people. No, he needs to go.
Sam
If you were intelligent enough to read the story before you commented you would realise that the Ceann Comhairle was absent from the Chair at the time. However intelligence is clearly something of which you cannot be accused.
Boom Richie!!!!!
Well done Sam you spoofer… Think before you comment please
But it was OK for a TD to grope a female TD in the Dail Chamber. I think this was ten thousand times more serious than a bit of bad language. Let’s get our priorities right.
Yeah, but he was wearing a suit so it’s grand
Well done Boyd Barrett , not a socialist supporter but this talk is on the ball.
I wouldn’t worry. By the time Rich Boy got up to speak, I’d imagine the chamber and gallery were mostly empty.
Can The Journal at least name the Party/ Group that he campaigned for and was elected for People Before Profit. Like him or loathe him- he is not an Independent.
Paolo
Who was he with?
Socialist Workers party I think?
Are they the crowd that plaster posters about meetings discussing the teachings of Karl Marx on light posts in Dublin?
No but some of their members are speakers at such events.
Ide be more worried with them seeing adults acting worse than kids in a playground! !
The like of Boyd Barrett, Wallace, Flanagan let the Irish parliament down very badly. They will say that people should be more worried with the state of the country than their appearance etc. but what does their contempt for the dignity of our parliament do to advance the county?
They could be a leading tourist attraction.
‘Look at Paddy trying to govern themselves’ says Mr Chomondely Warner from the visitors gallery in the Dail.
‘That one isn’t even wearing shoes’
‘That one appears to be defecating on his desk’
‘I say, they are a wild bunch these Irish!’
You can put a suit on a monkey and he will still be a monkey.
unless he’s a bouncer; then he’d be a gorilla…
Alan you’re dead right. I’ll bet all the red thumbs are from people that think wearing suits isn’t progressive (have to laugh every time the lefties wheel that one out) enough.
Just as Fine Gael members grope women in the chamber.
“You can put a suit on a monkey and he will still be a monkey.”
Sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience there, James.
He is too much in love with the sound of his own voice to have noticed them.
Ha ha
Total spoofer this guy – populist to the point of being hilarious especially on anything economic. Even Mad Dog Browne has given up tearing him asunder cos it was far too easy.
F%ckin hell
I hate any article which criticises Barrett or the two goons sitting across from him because it’s just giving them the attention they grave.
Barrett has to curse to get his name on the news.
Wallace has to put on an act with his fake emotion long hair baggy jeans speech.
As someone said above, I’m sure the Dail was packed. There’s usually a rush for the car park once these stand up.
Go Richard.
Never mind the children , im sure there are many government ministers still using crayons by the look of the policies put forward lately.
I’d ask the labour TD to check his conscience and ask whats really damaging our kids. Labour voting for cuts to the childrens allowance, education, medical cards, stealth taxes, property taxes, their parents not being able to find gainful employment etc, or hearing the words ‘bull$hit’ and ‘wet dream’
PASSION it’s called thank you Richard and Gerry for highlighting the Justiceforthestardust 48 campaign .
We won’t have to listen to him for long. Paddy power have him at 4-1 not to be reflected. I’ll stick a tenner on that.
*re elected
Paddy Power will be a tenner better off so.
The children of Ireland are well used to hearing the Governments antics described as a load of bullshit.
This fella is a disgrace, thuggery nothing more. Parrot is our national gobsh*ite
Oh who can tame this man?!!!
We live in a world where people are more offended by someone using “profanities” than they are by the fact that children in this country and around the globe are going hungry and in poverty. Get your priorities right you gigantic bunch of intellectually defective idiots!
Why can’t we be offended by both of those things?
These are only words that have been made up. If you get offended that’s a choice you make.
Nothing more nauseating than a rich kid harping on about socialism. Parrot really is a national idiot
Who votes for all these TDs.
Richard Boyd Barrett is to be commended for his speech yesterday he speaks the absolute truth about this shocking Government and their cuts and austerity, etc.
I’ve generally no time for politicians, majority of them are crooks and parasites but I believe Boyd Barrett would make a very good Taoiseach, you couldn’t get much worse than the last couple of fuc***s anyway!
so we can lay illegal debts on the heads of those children but whatever you do don’t speak ugly truths within earshot of the kiddies!!
Richard boyd barrett spoke truth, pity we dont have more like him in the dail, i know one person who didnt speak truth through debates yesterday.
That’s the caliber of a lot of them now.
‘Why’s everybody so PC?, its not my fault if you take offence!’ ‘Wash your mouth son!’
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