The Government made the decision last night to push back debate on new laws to reduce the voting age to 16 in all elections by 12 months.
Independent Donegal TD Thomas Pringle last night presented a bill to the Dáil, calling for a referendum on the issue to be held alongside the local and European elections.
Speaking on behalf of the Government, Junior Minister Malcolm Noonan said the Government said that it is their plan to defer the second reading of the bill until the 30th of June 2023.
He said that it was a matter of debate as to whether the reduction in voting age would address concerns surrounding voter apathy.
In a statement to the Dáil, Thomas Pringle said: “We need to ensure that young voices are included in discussions such as this one.
“Giving them a vote would be a great step forward.
“The only way to ensure young people’s voices are heard to give them a vote because the only thing politicians respond to is voters.
“We are ignoring a large number of people who need this change to take place because they do not have a voice.
“It is their future we are talking about.”
He also rejected the idea that teenagers are not interested in politics and said that this generation is the most educated in history.
“They are educated, they are smart and we can hardly believe that they are capable of sitting exams in nine different subjects, but they are somehow unable to get their head around the single transferable vote,” he said.
The extension of voting to 16 and 17 year olds was recommended by the Constitutional Convention in 2013 and, in 2015, the European Parliament endorsed a report that called for the voting age for European elections to be set at 16.
