Call to enact 30-year-old poll result on Seanad vote

THE Government should enact a 30-year-old referendum result to give all third-level graduates a Seanad vote if it expects the electorate to take part in a second ballot on the Lisbon treaty, a campaign group has claimed.

The 1979 Seventh Amendment poll to extend Seanad panels to graduates of colleges other than Trinity College Dublin and the four colleges in National University of Ireland was passed by 93% of voters.

Two Seanad panels with three seats each are currently elected by graduates of TCD and the NUI universities in Dublin (UCD), Cork, Galway and Maynooth.