A poster calling for a Yes vote in the upcoming presidential candidate age referendum which will be asking people if Ireland should reduce the minimum age for presidential candidates from 35 to 21
Michael McLoughlin, of Youth Work Ireland, writes:
“Youth Work Ireland will today launch an online poster campaign calling for a Yes Vote in the referendum on reducing the age for presidential candidates. The organisation believes the second referendum on the age to be a candidate for President has received no real attention from amongst the political establishment. The group whose members work with over 100,000 young people believes very few people are even aware that the vote is happening or what the issues are. The group will publish a number of online posters highlighting the caliber and ability of several under 35s who could not be candidates currently using the hashtag “#not2young”. The organisation emphasises it has no money to spend on campaigning.”
“If a person is deemed eligible to be a Minister in the Government at 21, making some very onerous decisions, then there is no reason why they cannot be considered for President where in reality the duties are actually less demanding. Arguments and debate about experience and suitability of younger candidates for the office are just that, arguments. The proper place for these is in a presidential election campaign where of course the electorate are free to reject a candidate on this basis, however it should not be hard wired in to our basic law that a person who is old enough to be Taoiseach cannot be our first citizen. Looking at political and social affairs today we can see many people under 35 who should not be ruled out of at least standing for the office. At the end of the day if we want to promote young people and involve them more in political life having such a discriminatory provision at the heart of our constitution is not helping.”
FIGHT!
Ah look, they seem to be under the impression that people even know there’s a second referendum.
This one is going to pass simply on the strength of the thousands of people who’ve never seen the inside of a ballot box voting yes to everything in sight
I’ve never seen the inside of a ballot box. They’re just way too small.
Yeah, and they tend to be locked any time I get near them…
A quick look at the history of Irish referenda shows that the Irish people do not vote to change the constitution lightly, especially where there’s been a lack of debate about and/or exposure of the issue. The relatively small number of younger voters, a sizeable minority of which will vote no to this anyway, will not prevent this amendment from being overwhelmingly defeated.
I’ll be voting ‘NO’.
The presidential role is largely diplomatic and ceremonial and more fitting to someone with a wide range of life experiences, and not some kid. Yes, 21 is still a ‘kid’ in life experience terms.
+1
True, but surely, you just don’t vote for the presidential candidate who doesn’t have the necessary attributes/experience then?
Not sure how we benefit from not allowing people under 35 becoming president. It doesn’t mean that they ever will, but that there is a specific rule to stop them, just doesn’t make sense to me.
If the referendum was reversed and they were looking to raise the age from 21 to 35, my gut feeling is it would fail.
True, letting the Young Fine Gaelers and Ogra Fianna Fail members stand doesn’t necessarily mean they’d be elected.
With the help of god.
The problem is that with a widening selection pool it’s far less likely that I’ll be selected as a candidate next time round, and I’m sure we’d all be very disappointed were I not to be available due to my space being taken up by someone with more spots than wrinkles.
Sorry Jane, but the president is still actually defined as a ‘he’. So you can run either way. Mary and Mary had to get a sex change each in the 90’s which actually forced them to divorce and get civil partnerships to the former husbands, but Mary 1 could not divorce, so she flew to London to get the opp on the QT.
but I agree, a 21yr old could never understand that, let alone run for office.
I disagree wholeheartedly, makes perfect sense… 21 year olds have little or no life experience.
It is precisely because of a lack of life experience I don’t believe they qualify… and lowering the age is not going to improve a persons life experience, so I really don’t see what you are getting at.
21 is too young, kids are kids, plain and simple…. and just to be clear… if they won a noble prize, fathered six kids or birthed six kids, or ran six marathons, or built a new facebook and became a billionaire, fought in Lebanon or anywhere the Irish army goes, etc. etc. etc…. and did so before 21… still too young.
It’s just my opinion.
Comic Sans was Michael Collins favourite font.
I am really worried about this. A lot of people seem to be polling a No vote on this. Is it not time we change this country being ruled over by old people and get a youthful leader to represent this country.
Sqee ‘rules’ our country now?
35+ is still youthful!!
*sobs*
35+ is young… hell, 50 and under is young.
Any credible candidates you’d suggest?
I friend of mine has 23 year old horse. He’ll run under the slogan “The Glue Factory or the Áras”. It should confuse the bookies when they’re calculating the odds. We’ll get John McCririck to do the election broadcasts.
Well I wouldn’t mind running in the next presidential campaign but alas I am too young.
This is change for the sake of change.
Or rather, its change for the sake of being seen to change something, but really not actually changing anything of real consequence.
This is straw-political reform.
So like, if you want to vote yes, whatever, cool.
But as a word of friendly advice, there is nothing heroic about this, come down that hill and go back up one of the other ones.
Just because someone who is 21 can run. Doesn’t mean you have to vote for them. But I’d like to see young intelligent presidents not old men who look pregnant while knocking on heavens door.
You may be too young to be president but surely you’re not too young to remember that our previous two presidents were neither old nor men, right?
The two Mary’s where no spring chickens but both did a fine job, even if Mary McAleese has some dubious connections with the Catholic Church and because of her position, nepotism secured her husband a job making a balls of the magdalene report. But of course I am making reference to our current president. I just worry what sort of impression we give the world when we send this shaky old man to represent us.
Niall Horan for president!
…of what… Mullingar?
…no….my heart
wait and see, enda will appoint daragh loftus for the presidency.
I suppose it’s unfair that under 35s can’t even stand for election and have the debate then. But on the other hand, I don’t really want the presidency to become a sort of political super-springboard for young ambitious types. (Not that that’s limited to the under 35s… it just has the potential to be a much more unedifying sight.) What do you do after the presidency? What kind of role do you take up in society again? Can you go on to greater and better things when your only real qualification is having held office? Should the office be open to being leveraged in that way? Mary Robinson made good hay of it, it’s true, but she was a highly accomplished lawyer and activist beforehand.
We want the age to be lowered to 21. To illustrate this, here is a picture of a man aged 30.
I think I’d be in favour of lowering the age to 28 maybe. 21 is too young for this role in my opinion.
But you don’t have to vote for a 21 year old, but it’s nice to have the option.
Not a hope in hell. Get a lot life experience first.
Has there ever been a more superfluous referendum?
How about a constitutional ban on governments unilaterally underwriting private debts that are a multiple of our GDP? No?
No, never. While I would generally be against using referenda to give a government a kick in the teeth, I think this is one is such a patronising waste of time that a strong No vote will reaffirm that the Irish people value the constitution and won’t countenance it being pricked around with unnecessarily.
That aside, it won’t increase the diversity of presidential candidates a single jot. If anything, it could be abused by a party with no hope of winning to put some odious twenty-something career politician in the limelight for cynical reasons.
Spot on.
Disagree. If we had someone with the kind of inspirational qualities as say Malala Yousefzai (sp?), I’d vote for her over some grey, bloated, over-pensioned vampire like Pat Cox or Gay Mitchell.
I’d far prefer a 28 year old mental-health/suicide campaigner or anti-bullying champion representing Ireland’s values over some middle-aged, deathly functionary. It’s a figurehead position, and an arbitrary age limit is just stupid, we’d still have to vote in the end.
if we’re talking age caps, can we ban anyone within 10 years of retirement from the Dail? Michael Noonan has no dog in the race he’s supposedly running. I’d far prefer people in their late twenties/early thirties running a country than a bunch of institutionalised geriatrics.
I take your point, and that is fair enough, but I would say two things in response. First is that it’s a terrible idea to have a really useful young person as president. The office is massively limiting on what you can do in the public arena. Even Mary Robinson, who I have the deepest respect for, was just very good at delivering dignified platitudes and being an excellent and experienced diplomat during her time in office. A young anti-suicide campaigner is more use to the country outside the Áras that in it. They wouldn’t, for example, be able to talk about government mental health or economic policy that might affect suicide rates.
Secondly, people do seem to gloss over the fact that the president does have a some power in Constitutional crises. Patrick Hillary may have been grey and middle-aged, but he had the experience and level headedness to withstand a roasting from Brian Lenihan, on Haughey’s orders, demanding that he refuse Garret FitzGerald’s request for a dissloution. With the best will in the world, I wouldn’t trust someone without the thick skin that comes from political experience to be able to deal with those sort of issues in the correct manner.
As you say, any candidate still has to be elected by the people, so I could well be wrong.
Doesn’t it depend on the person and not their age? Another political dinosaur in Hilary’s place might have bowed to the backbenchers natural instinct to acquiesce to a superior.
And I strongly object to and would never vote for an ex-politician for what is supposed to be an a-political office, special cases like Michael D. aside, who was more of an orator IMO.
McAleese and Robinson have in their own way changed and broadened the role of president in their times, there’s no constitutional ban on someone from a suicide-prevention or anti-bullying background using it as a powerful campaigning tool, like McAleese did on the north. Someone younger actually might have the vigour to turn it into something fresh.
Our choice of president should say something about our values as a country – the vast majority of our politicians have none – and frankly we can do better than promote one of the focus-grouping, spinning, dead-eyed zombies who inhabit Leinster House and Strasbourg who are looking for the coup-de-grace for their CV before retiring and cashing their pension in.
I’d vote for Bressie over Enda Kenny any day. And not just because he’s ride-central.
Yes, it does depend on the person, but old-fashioned though it may be, I still subscribe to the view that you won’t find a wise head on young shoulders.
I think you are being unduly optimistic with regards to the degree to which a President can expand the role. Any dissent between the government and the President is a resigning matter for the latter. Robinson was expressly prevented from giving a speech on the BBC and sitting on UN committees by the government of the day.
I can’t agree with your assessment of the presidency as being supposed to be an apolitical office in such a strict sense. It is, after all, a politically elected position where the main method of nomination is by securing the votes of Oireachtas members. Even stranger is your approach to Michael D. as being exceptional – he was a long serving member of the Oireachtas, a senior cabinet minister and had a reputation for being fiercely party political.
There’s no doubt that there are better people out there, but they aren’t getting nominated. Perhaps the nominations system is something that would be more usefully examined – we saw at the last election the undignified scramble of independent candidates trying to secure county council nominations. The proposed change simply doesn’t open the race up to the sort of people you seem to envisage, and I think that’s quite self evident from the sort of candidates we get from amongst the breadth of everyone in the country aged 35 and up.
I’m afraid I had to look up what a Bressie is.
I agree. This referendum is nonsense. Who railroaded this through? They should be kicked in the hole for wasting taxpayer’s money bringing this to a referendum.
Well I don’t much care about this referendum but I think this poster could sway me. To vote no. One of the great pleasures of getting older is not having to substitute “2” for “two” and being free to ignore any communication in comic sans. Also, no hashtags, I’m old.
D w wnt txtspk prsdnt? Nt rlly.
Also, what’s going to happen to the wonderful student unions if all the SU Goys are now running for president of the country? Can we rob the organisers of the fresher’s ball and other such events of the talent to make it happen?
the worst part is that the txtspk 2 in this case is supposed to be ‘too’, which in my min is an even more sinful crime.
*mind, even!
Oh right. I thought that not really understanding what the hashtag meant was even further evidence (if such was needed) of my outoftouchness due to advancing age rather than 2, two and too being completely interchangable.
I think I need a lie down.
Young people these days grew up with WhatsApp, Facebook Messemger & no character number limits; you’re really showing your age with your ‘txtspeak’.
I’m even obsolete when mocking the technology. This is a disaster. But further proof that 21 year olds can’t be president – all presidents should be at least as out of touch as me. That’s my actual rule.
dat mite b tru but dey stil tipe like idiots.
This is the worst excuse to vote no I have heard yet and at the end of the day you don’t have to vote for some young person all you are doing is giving them the option to run.
My mother is the only person who communicates to me in txt spk. I usually just call back rather than decipher it.
I’ll happily vote ‘Yes’ to allow a 21 year old to stand for President, but it is pretty unlikely I’ll ever vote for a 21 year old for President.
This is like complaining about not wanting that TV channel that you never plan to watch anyway.
It’s not really the same. Just entering the presidential race guarantees you concentrated media attention, and this in itself could be open to misuse.
Ah sure why not get rid of the limit altogether?
The likes of Dylan Haskins and his mot representing the country on the beaches of Gallipoli??
I do laugh at this campaign.
Well said !
I never thought I’d see the two of you wanting ban people from have the choice to run in an election. Kinda lost a bit of respect for both of you. Like just because someone of 21 can run doesn’t mean you have to vote for them.
Lower it to 18 and be done with it then. 21 is just arbitrary nonsense…. 18 at least is the age to vote.
Why aren’t you saying lower it to 18… I’m just curious Drogg… as I usually see fairly eye-to-eye with yerself too.
I would prefer it to be 18 but that’s not the option we are being given. So this is a stepping stone.
We should leave presidential nominations to older, wiser heads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAte9FnkT-g
If you can vote in the election you should be able to stand for that post. That’s representative democracy. The president of a republic should represent the entire country so there should be no age limit.
if you don’t want a 21-year-old president don’t vote for 21-year-old candidates, it’s not that difficult. Wanting to stop them from even standing because you don’t like the idea is anti-democratic.
Anti-democratic me hole.
FFS!
Why aren’t they asking for it to be lowered to 18, the voting age then. Because applying your logic, 21 is also anti-democratic.
Well there’s certainly a democratic deficit if a 30-year-old can vote but not stand. And yes, everyone of age should be able to stand. Then the voters get to choose a president based on age, gender, colour. dress sense, life experience or whatever other criteria they wish, which is the essence of democracy I would have thought.
All that said this is a frivolous referendum from a government scared s**tless of losing another one.
I’m on board with lowering it to 18. I honestly don’t understand why 35 is a magical maturity age. Seems very arbitrary age to pick to me.
The age to run for the Dail is 21, and I don’t see a flood of twenty-somethings running about Leinster House. I don’t see how lowering the Presidential age is going to automatically mean we have a ‘perishing tyke’ installed as our Dear Leader. They’ll have to go through the nomination procedures and put their message to the voters, same as everyone else.
The ‘No’ argument to meet seems to boil down to “Young people! Pah! What do they know?!”
Yeah well there has to be some consolation to being an old gimmer. One of them is knowing how little the dreaded Young People know.
I can’t think of the others.
And we don’t care about the young folks
Talking ’bout the young style
And we don’t care about the old folks
Talking ’bout the old style too