Successful International Campaign Meeting

On Saturday, October 17th guests from Austria, Denmark & the UK met with young people from across Ireland along with NYCI’s youth campaign group to discuss reducing the voting age to 16. We launched our “Vote at 16 – A New Age in Voting” campaign on January 27th outside the Dáil. Following this we received a huge amount of media coverage across the country and have been presenting the campaign to young people across Ireland. In addition we presented to the Oireachtas Committee in June who were very favourable towards the issue.

At the meeting Jonathan Pyke from the UK Vote at 16 coalition outlined his experience of campaigning on the issue and his experience of training young people to be Vote at 16 ambassadors. Michael Hedelund discussed the Danish experience and the lead up to the pilot elections Denmark will be holding in 30 constituencies in the next few weeks with 16 & 17 year olds. In Austria where the voting age has been lowered to 16, Benedikt Walzel described the campaign’s journey and the successful result where 60% of young people turned up at the booths to have their say.

At NYCI we are determined to continue advocating on this issue. The commitment in the revised Programme for Government, which states that the Electoral Commission will look at extending the franchise to young people over 16 at local elections, is a welcome move in the right direction. If you would like to get involved or know of young people that would be interested in campaigning on this issue contact Clodagh O’Brien on 01-478 4122 or e-mail communications@nyci.ie. For more information visit www.voteat16.ie.

To view the press release visit: http://www.youth.ie/what_s_new/vote_at_16_campaign_meets_european_counterparts_to_further_issue