Aontú calls for Irish citizens in NI to be able to vote

Political party Aontú has submitted a bill to allow Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland to vote in presidential elections in the Republic.

Leader Peadar Tóibín said the party had submitted the “39th Amendment of the Constitution (Voting Rights in Presidential Elections) Bill 2025” to the bills office in the Dáil (Irish parliament).

Details of the bill were announced at the party’s Easter 1916 Commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin on Saturday, and Tóibín said, if passed, would be “historic”.

The election for the next President of Ireland will take place in October.

Tóibín said that under the current law, more than one million Irish people living in Northern Ireland are not eligible to vote in the election.

“The Good Friday Agreement confirmed that people born in the north of Ireland have a right to be an Irish citizen,” he said.

“Indeed, currently nearly 700,000 people in the north of Ireland have exercised that right, are Irish citizens and hold an Irish passport.”

He added that Irish citizens in Northern Ireland have a “right to stand in the election” to be the President of Ireland but under the current law, “the Irish state refuses them the right to vote”.

The Aontú leader said the “power to grant” Irish citizens the right to vote in presidential elections in Ireland was “not held by the London government”.

“It is not held by the Stormont Executive. It is in the gift of the people of this state and the Dáil,” he added.

“It is this government that is preventing the full Irish nation voting as one for the first time since 1918.”

Under current rules, in order to vote in a presidential election someone must be an Irish citizen and normally reside in the Republic of Ireland, bar a few exceptions including for Defence Forces personnel or diplomatic staff serving overseas.

In 2013 a constitutional convention recommended extending votes to citizens living outside of the Republic of Ireland – a position officially supported by all of the largest political parties in the state.

A change in the criteria for voting in presidential elections would require an amendment to the Irish constitution, which in turn requires a referendum.

The decision on whether to hold such a referendum lies with the Irish government.

In September last year, former tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) Simon Coveney said he believed some politicians in the Republic of Ireland feared allowing Irish citizens in Northern Ireland to vote in presidential elections as it would result in a Sinn Féin president.

The current president Michael D Higgins was re-elected as president of Ireland in 2018, having held office since 2011.