16 and 17 year-olds must be allowed to have their say in decisions which will shape their future, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly, who was speaking after the UK decision to reduce the voting age in their elections.<\/p>\n
Deputy Farrelly said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the next UK election, young people in Strabane will be able to cast a ballot, yet those in Lifford won’t be able to vote in November\u2019s presidential election, despite being mere metres away from each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be this way in future. Legislation that I introduced in May – the Reduction of the Voting Age to Sixteen Years Bill 2025 – provides a pathway to reduce the voting age from 18 to 16 in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople aged 16 and 17 are as civically informed as their peers aged over 18, but are unjustly restricted when it comes to democratic participation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf young people can work full time and pay taxes, it is only fair to afford them the opportunity to influence how these taxes are spent, locally and nationally.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast month, Ireland ranked 18th out of over 140 countries worldwide in terms of youth participation in political, economic and civic life. We should be doing so much better.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitical decisions taken today can have consequences that last for generations – and young people are the ones who will have to live longest with the results of those decisions. They deserve a say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK is taking action on this issue – and there\u2019s no reason we should not follow suit. I\u2019ll be pushing for the government to progress my legislation as soon as possible once the D\u00e1il resumes.\u201d<\/p>\n
July 17th, 2025<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 16 and 17 year-olds must be allowed to have their say in decisions which will shape their future, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly, who was speaking after the UK decision to reduce the voting age in their elections. Deputy Farrelly said: \u201cIn the next UK election, young people in Strabane will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,540,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aidan-farrelly","category-children","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n