Over 476,000 young people aged 18 to 25 could make crucial difference in referendum
The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) is urging young people to make their voice heard by voting in the Children’s rights referendum tomorrow.
“For only the second time in the history of the State an election/referendum will be held on a Saturday+, therefore we strongly urge the up 476,000 young people aged 18 to 25* in the Republic of Ireland who have registered to vote, to make use of weekend voting and more importantly to ensure their view on the constitutional amendment is taken into account,” stated James Doorley, NYCI Deputy Director.
“Contrary to popular opinion, the majority of young people do vote, as evidenced by the fact that 62% voted in the General Election last year. NYCI and many of our member organisations have been working hard over the last month to ensure that as many young people were informed, registered to vote and encouraged to go out and cast their ballot in the referendum. We were particularly pleased that almost 38,000 new voters were added to the electoral list in time to vote in this referendum. While not all these are young voters, many are and it is a welcome sign of interest in the referendum,” continued Mr Doorley.
“We have been critical of successive Governments for holding elections on weekdays which disenfranchised many young people who were away from home in education, training or employment. Therefore we welcome the decision of the current Government to hold this referendum on a Saturday and we encourage young people to take advantage of this and to turn out in large numbers and make the case for all future elections to be held on a weekend,” concluded Mr Doorley.
ENDS
For further information, please contact Daniel Meister, Communications Officer at NYCI on 087 781 4903 or 01 425 5955 or email communications@nyci.ie
Notes to Editors:
+ 1st time was for 2nd Nice Treaty Referendum, October 2002
* Census 2011 http://www.cso.ie/en/census/
538,631 young people aged 18 to 25 in the Republic of Ireland.
Source: CSO Census 2006 volume 2 – Ages and Marital status: http://www.cso.ie/census/census2006results/volume_2/census_2006_volume_2.html
National Youth Council of Ireland
The National Youth Council of Ireland is a membership-led umbrella organisation that represents and supports the interests of voluntary youth organisations and uses its collective experience to act on issues that impact on young people.