Irish govt minister says he would favor allowing Diaspora to vote in election

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Ireland's Minister for Transport and Tourism Leo Varadkar

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Ireland's Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar would favor allowing members of the Irish Diaspora to vote in presidential election, he told an audience at the Global Irish Economic Forum, according to the Irish Times.

He said it would be worth allowing Irish citizens living outside the country to vote for presidential candidates "because the president would then become the president of all the Irish and all of Ireland."

He said he favored allowing the Diaspora to vote at some point, but not in parliamentary polls, which could raise questions as to which constituencies people living outside the State would be entitled to vote in.

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“Also, we would have probably the best part of half a million people in Northern Ireland who have Irish passports and would then be able to vote and potentially swing the election . . . it’s no taxation, no representation,” he told the “Engaging the Young Leaders of the Global Irish” session.

He added that a vote could be restricted to only those people who had left the country in the last five years.

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