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THE GOVERNMENT has received a formal recommendation to lower the voting age to 16.
The recommendation from the Constitutional Convention is the first to have been made by the body since it began its official meetings in January.
The 100-member body – two-thirds of which is made up of ordinary members of the public – decided in January to recommend that the voting age be reduced to 16.
The terms of reference for the convention had asked it to consider whether the current age (18) should be lowered to 17.
It also asked the convention to consider whether the term of the Presidency should be shortened to five years, and be aligned with local and European elections – recommendations which were rejected by the convention.
The rules laid down by the Oireachtas in setting up the convention mean the government must respond to the recommendation within four months.
If the government approves the recommendation, and agrees to arrange a referendum to lower the voting age, it must also outline a timetable by which it intends to do so.
“This is a landmark day for the work of the Constitutional Convention,” said its chairman Tom Arnold.
“The establishment of the Constitutional Convention represented an exciting and innovative approach to constitutional reform in this country. Today, we see the first part of the process in action and this report reflects the Convention vote by a slender majority to recommend that the voting age be lowered to 16.”
Arnold said the convention was a “fresh approach” that allowed ordinary people to shape the running of the country.
The convention held a second set of hearings last month on whether to amend the constitutional reference to the role of women, and next month will consider amending the current document so as to allow full civil marriage for same-sex couples.
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Sure wasn’t it the same reason they banned those ads when all those people started eating 3 shredded wheat in the morning.
@Tony Gordon: ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It’s just an add ffs, unfortunately people are still going to jump off cliffs whether this add is aired or not. NONSENSE!!
@paddyirishman: I guess the hope is that one of them might not and that they’ll seek help sooner than throw themselves to their death.
There’s something really ironic about seeing someone like yourself throw a wobbler online about an add being pulled, screaming that it’s nonsense… I mean, calm down, it’s just an add right?
Jeez what a snowflake. Someone please warn him about the add where Nicole Scherzinger walks into the door, don’t have a panic attack cos she makes a full recovery!
Amended ?????
The only way to amend this is to cut out everything before he gets out of the water …… The advertising agency behind this should have been hit with a hefty fine.
@Passing through this life: this kind of nonsense makes me want to jump off a cliff
@Passing through this life: just change the tag line “buy a Kia before you die (low km nearly new models on sale)”
@David Edwards: It might not cause you or for that matter me to do something stupid …… but this world is full of the truly stupid. Last year we had the incident of the guy who died from a fall from the cliff in Co Clare ….. and then there were the idiots during the storms …..
These people should not be encouraged or given ideas …… if only because of the financial cost to the Irish taxpayer ….
@David Edwards: Grow up, that’s not really too clever a thing to say now is it?
@Passing through this life: nice use of 5 ? You must have been really confused
@Passing through this life: Yes, because in the case of a person committing suicide all that matters is the taxpayer!
@Dotty Dunleary: Sorry if you missed my point …. my reference to “cost to the taxpayer” …. was to make a point to the idiots who think that it doesn’t effect them . I don’t begrudge this spending …. I also intended to make the point of the danger they put our rescue service personal in …. but accidently hit post.
@Passing through this life: It’s why the emergency services exist, and the personnel are trained to deal with dangerous situations. Hopefully they are never put in a position where there lives are endangered though!
@Passing through this life: is this not just called natural selection, using your analogy, think of how much money we could save trying not to swaddle the lemmings, But seriously its just an ad.
@Passing through this life: surely it would be cheaper for us not to swaddle every lemming from cradle to grave. But seriously its just an ad
7 year warranty though
Here we go again more PC bull
Snowflakes triggered again…
Fantastic
How does Superman get away with everything?
Some people just have too much time
idiotic ad
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