Mattie McGrath: Urges Electoral Reform and Tightened Immigration

John Kohler, I too am delighted to speak here tonight on this issue and I thank Sinn Féin for putting down this motion at this time. As we know, most parties in this House and this country say they're in favour of a united Ireland, say they're in favour of many things, you know, it's nice to say. And I, to put it on the record, I am fully in favour of a united Ireland. I come from a Republican family. My late dad was in the War of Independence and spent 14 months of his life in Castellate as well as the time spent out on the run. And many, many people liked him and we salute him for the freedom that they have and the pity that we weren't able to do it all at the time. And he opposed the treaty, I think it was a bad job as well. And we have that situation in Ireland today. I am disappointed, of course, that the old custom here, or not old custom, it's a semi-new custom, has come in here where governments, with a motion like this, they don't decide to oppose it. And they acquiesce and allow it to go forward, but that's as far as it gets. It's left on a shelf in gathering dust. And that is not, that's not a good idea. The agreed motion, people think they've got somewhere, but you haven't. But as we know, Deputy, our former President McAleese and the delayed Madden McGuinness, both who were born and raised in Ireland, stood for election for the Office of Presidency. And indeed, Deputy President McAleese served two terms. And, you know, that's a bit drastic today, that a citizen living in Northern Ireland can stand for election here, but yet the same citizen or person can't vote in the presidential election here. And we need to examine that and have a sense. And I think maybe we can put our toe on the water with the presidential election and see how, what kind of an appetite, there is in Northern Ireland for people to participate in the electoral democracy down here. But we also have to turn our eyes to the low turnout in elections here in the South. And we have to also examine the perilous state of the electoral register. It's in a terrible state, and I want to thank the people in South Tipperary Council who I deal with, and my office deal with, regarding corrections to the register. And there's nothing more hurtful or more annoying to family where someone has deceased maybe for one, two, three, maybe ten years, and their name is still on the electoral register. And it's unforgivable that the dead start, it is that they're linked up with the electoral register. What is wrong with this country in 2025 that they can't have a synchronisation of a dead start? Your birth cert is a very important document. Your dead start should be also, and that we can't, in this age of technology, have an automatic rectifying of the register when somebody passes away. There's nothing more hurtful when they get a letter on toe, when they get many other letters and different surveys and everything else to a deceased person. It's shocking, and it's not good enough. And we should be able to have, I know there were some efforts made this time, for the last election, and recently, the last year's local election in general, to have a more up-to-date, or more, not as long of a closing date before you got a register. Again, you should be able to register online, which is a PPS number, you know, up to 24 hours before the election. I think you should, of course. And there's an appellation, and we see the low turnout, and no more than 50% or maybe 58%, and we must ask why that is as well. And we see now there's no great interest in people standing for the president at this point in time. So maybe we can look at a constitutional review of the role of the president, because, you know, if they differ on anything or anything else, you know, the step on the government's toes is not accepted. But we need a president that's, you know, looking after all the needs of all the people of Ireland. And, indeed, we should strive to maybe have an evaluation of how the Constitution has served us in that area. I'm not criticising them, but maybe it's time to update it. To ask for living abroad, yes, of course, I believe they should be entitled to have a vote as well, because, after all, many of them chose to go on. We see young graduates now leaving in their droves, which is a pity that experience here. But, I mean, many of them would want to still have a say and have the aspiration to come back here. And you could meet people 20, 30 years in America, in different places, are still anxious to come back to their native side. And, you know, just Deputy Connolly mentioned about the fatality to the nation. That's gone a long way down the line now. And our leaders here can be questioned. Our Taoiseach can be questioned. He's interested in problems all over the world. All over the world. And a former Taoiseach as well. And not interested in the issues at home. And I have an undone veil to the issue here of migration into this country. An inward migration. And, indeed, the six counties, which I'd love to have in, or 32 counties, is like a sieve here with people coming through the border down here who are not entitled to be here. And that's very, very wrong. And we're like an elephant in the room. And we've got our heads at closed ears to it. That we won't deal with that problem. And listen to the people out there. And I think that's the rock we're going to perish on. We must listen to the people of conscience. We mustn't demonise them and attack them and demonise them for questioning our immigration policies. And the greed that's involved in it now with the people that are getting into the industry and, indeed, are in a caring mood. We have a great record in this country for caring. And our diaspora going over the world, let there be brothers and sisters and everybody else, and throughout world countries and famine. But we need to now have a proper policy on inward immigration here and allow people to, they want to be involved and involved in it, but not the greed merchants being there to make vast millions. Thank you. Thank you.