Call for vote at 17 and more women active in politics

THE voting age should be lowered to 17 and political parties should be “named and shamed” if they don’t take sufficient steps to increase the number of women in politics, a cross-party Oireachtas committee has recommended.

Despite calls for the Dáil to be slimmed down, the Joint Committee on the Constitution did not recommend a reduction in the number of TDs.

Instead, committee members argued that significant numbers of TDs were required in order to have a properly functioning government, effective opposition and efficient parliament.