Irish living across EU are being denied voting right

Up to a half million Irish people living in the EU should be able to vote in Dáil elections, and are being deprived of their rights at the moment, according to the European Commission.

There are just five members of the European Union whose citizens lose the right to vote in national elections when they move to another EU country, and this includes Ireland.

The Government is to consider proposals from the constitutional convention next month that all Irish people living in any part of the world (estimated to be at least 1.2 million) should be able to vote in presidential elections. But they have not made any such recommendation for national elections, where the number of potential voters born in Ireland could be close to half the 3.2 million registered voters in the country.