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TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY has confirmed that the government is considering introducing online voting to allow the Irish diaspora to vote in presidential elections.
While at the Famine Memorial in Philadelphia as part of his visit to the United States for St Patrick’s Day, Kenny was asked by reporters if they were considering introducing online voting.
A clip, played on Morning Ireland today, gave his reply:
Yes. Yes, this is all part of the questions that need to be answered.
If you take a welder in Alaska, or a farm worker in Queensland Australia, they may not be in a position to actually travel to an individual centre to vote.
“And for that reason we will have to explore all of the opportunities that exist here.”
Speaking on critics of the diaspora vote, Kenny said that the question was for the Irish people, and said that there have been low turnouts in elections here.
He added that Irish people abroad had continuously asked him why they can’t have a more central role in politics in Ireland.
“Having considered this matter over the past period,” he told reporters, “taking into account what the fifth report of the Constitution Convention said, the government last week agreed that we should extend voting rights to emigrants and the Irish diaspora including Northern Ireland, and that we would do that in time, not for the next presidential election, but for the one after that in 2025.”
This month an options paper will be published, which will set out the categories and conditions that the government want people to discuss.
“Also the [compilation] of a new electoral register which will accommodate that, and when those questions are put and answered to our satisfaction and the agreement of everybody, we will then hold a referendum to give effect the extension of voting rights to emigrant people.”
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IF ever there was a moment for enda kenny to answer the bloody quewstions he was asked (i.e. not committing an affront to our democratic processes) it was today. His performance today at leaders questions in relation to the whistleblowers was, to borrow a relevant term, ‘disgusting’.
It’s pretty obvious at this stage Kenny is kicking a lot of cans down the road courtesy of his Co conspirators Fianna Fail.
@FC, if Adams ever answered the question relating to the murders he was involved in,ill buy you a pint.
@The spokesman: what is that got to do with the taoiseach of this country irrelevant of what party he is from showing what he showed today in the dail as nothing more than pathetic. If nothing else rolling his eyes to heaven is disgraceful with what has emerged.
@ FC…. And you’re point is what exactly ??. The post is about kenny and his inability / refusal to answer a question without waffling on & on in hope that his cohorts will make enough of a distraction to take the heat off him.
@The spokesman: Now that the FF, FG, LP and Independents are in Coalition why of course it is all SF’s fault, the fe##ers have been in power for far too long. There is no one else to blame.
Keep the status quo, save the party at all costs. Don’t let the fe##ers find out what we have been up to. Say nothing. Answer inconvenient questions with convenient white lies.
@The spokesman: i must have missed the reference to adams in the article. can you point it out to me.
Rolling his eyes up to heaven when the taoiseach is being asked questions on the Garda whistleblowers and the stories that have emerged is not really the way a Taoiseach should behave in light of what has come out.
@LITTLEONE: f/g stroke kenny stoke o’sullivan no credibility ,,, not rocket science ,,
I see they’ve given themselves another week off. Probably so they can spend the raise they gave themselves
The mushroom sector? I suppose they’d been kept in the dark and didn’t know what to expect.
@Damocles: It’s a shame, I knew the owner of the place. He was a fungi. **gets coat**
Yes, but how likely is it that he will answer any of the questions?
Kenny will do nothing. To do anything would upset the status quo. If he upsets Norinn, what will Denis do for a security force.
“Enda Kenny grilled…….”
Carlsberg don’t do headlines but if they did
Any questions put to him about the cases concerning Mary Boyle and Philip Cairns? I doubt the Journal will be informing us if such a question was posed.
Discussi g rural post offices?? I bet the Healy-Rae’s has one of them too
@Daithi De Roiste: It’s a shame to think that Kenny talks about supports for companies affected by the fall in value of sterling, yet he is not prepared to support our post offices which turn a good profit for this country.
Jesus, Mary Lou must love the sound of her own voice.
@Old Gordon: excellent contribution gordon, you must be very pleased with it
The UK is now having to face up to some of the realities of what they voted for and try to get as good a deal as possible from the EU. What they seem to forget is that they will need a lot of goodwill from the other EU member states if they are to succeed, but measures like this are too reminiscent of how the Nazis started discriminating against Jews and other “undesirables”. What next? Perhaps a blanket ban on certain groups being employed in whole sectors?
With a whole spate of national elections coming soon in the EU, not being seen to be too nice to the Brits or bending over backwards to accommodate their often apparently unreasonable demands, it will become de rigeur for European politicians to tell the Brits to take, at best, a Norway-style arrangement or else shag off with themselves.
@David Quim: You have it wrong there my friend, it won’t be a Norway or Swiss deal. It will be a UK deal, just you wait and see. The Germans are worried about the possible loss of their car exports to the UK. While the French buy a lot of Britains argi, especially UK lamb at the moment because it is cheaper.
How bout the truth about Mary Boyle and Philip Cairns …
have your say