Sinn Féin TD for Dublin South West Seán Crowe has reaffirmed Sinn Féin’s long standing policy to support the right of all Irish citizens of voting age to vote for the Irish President regardless of their place of residence.

Speaking in the Dáil, Teachta Crowe said:

“Sinn Féin firmly believes in the core republican principle of equal citizenship, and we therefore strongly support the right of all Irish citizens of voting age to vote for the Irish President regardless of their place of residence.

“The Good Friday Agreement states that this Government recognises the right of all people born in the North to identify as Irish citizens if they want. We should not be treating them as second class Irish citizens, but as full Irish citizens with full voting rights.

“Gerry Adams and I introduced a bill back in March 2014 that would have granted the presidential franchise to every citizen of Ireland without disqualification due to place of residency. That bill has languished without government support for over a decade, despite then-Fine Gael Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney introducing a bill with an identical purpose in 2019.

“While Peadar Tóibín’s bill that was debated in the Dáil this afternoon is narrower in scope than my own, it would be an important first step. A realisation of the Good Friday Agreement’s promise that all citizens are equal.

“Uachtarán na hÉireann represents us all. Every citizen must have a say in their representative. We cannot continue to ignore the right of all our citizens to have a say. We are reducing their citizenship to little more than a passport.”