Aontú has submitted the “Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025” to the Bills Office in the Dáil. Launching the Bill at the Aontú Easter 1916 Commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin today, Leader of Aontú and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín stated:
“In October this year, the election for the 10th President of Ireland will take place. However under the current law, over one million Irish people living in the north of Ireland will not be allowed to vote in that election. The Good Friday Agreement confirmed that people born in the north of Ireland have a right to be an Irish citizen. Indeed, currently nearly 700,000 people in the north of Ireland have exercised that right, are Irish citizens and hold an Irish passport. Irish citizens in the north of Ireland have a right to stand in the election to be the President of Ireland. Yet under the current law, the Irish state refuses them the right to vote”.
“The power to grant Irish citizens the right to vote in Presidential elections in Ireland is not held by the London government. It is not held by the Stormont Executive. It is in the gift of the people of this state and the Dáil. It is this government that is preventing the full Irish nation voting as one for the first time since 1918”.
“Today Aontú is submitting the Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025. This Bill if passed would be historic. It would be the most significant act of democratic self-determination since 1918. It is not a zero sum bill. It removes nothing from the rights of our unionist brothers and sisters yet it confers democratic rights to all Irish people”.
“The fact that the Irish government are withholding democratic rights from 700,000 Irish people in the north is shocking. It is anti-democratic. Opinion polls show that the vast majority of Irish people in the south of Ireland favour a referendum on a United Ireland. In the north there is growing support for a referendum even amongst many within the unionist population. The southern government is out of step with the Irish people. This bill does not even go as far as a referendum but facilitates a real and practical step towards democratic self-determination.
“FF, FG and the Independents when asked often declare a nebulous support for the objective of Irish unity, but for their own political self-interest have refused even a national debate or discussion on the issue. This Easter as we remember the men and women of 1916 who struggled and sacrificed their lives not for partitioned independence, but for full Irish independence, I urge Michael Martin and Simon Harris to put narrow political self interest aside, back the Aontú Bill and allow the next Irish President be representative all of the people of Ireland.”
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