With FF being the largest party, you should seek their support on this as it means you’re half way to getting it passed. :-)

@Dave- Adam is a young fella who’s still at school. You should be helping him with his Maths, not confusing him. Fine Gael have 73 seats, Fianna Failed have 19 seats. Because Fine Gael have 54 more seats, Adam that makes them the biggest party. Your grasp of maths, Dave does explain FF’s economic performance….

I’m 12 I should be allowed to vote purely because I have more sense than the present government and fianna failure put together

Not much chance of him voting Fianna Fáil given that he’s a member of Young Fine Gael. As a 19 year old who was irritated by my lack of franchise at 16 and 17, I agree with him totally. The last election was just over a week after my 18th birthday and no candidate or organisation informed me that I could register before my birthday so long as I would be of age on polling day, incredibly frustrating!

I would only differ with him in that he supports a party which is as bad at the moment as Fianna Fáil were in the past! However to be fair, his article is in no way party political.

This site is full of clowns like you. FF FG SF, eternal oneupmanship sniping at each other. ALL of you are full of crap. You make me sick that theres no alternative in this country. All any of you think of is whats in the best interest of your party, no interest in whats good for the country.

Cry me a river babes! X

@ Ronan- you’re absolutely right. The national conversation would be much better served listening to considered, eloquent contributions like yours. The body politic has clearly been missing an important voice. Tell me more Obi Wan Kenobi. It was gentle ribbing. You’re the one going off the deep end.

very well written article….. keep it up and stay positive hopefully i’m wrong

Define “paying service to the state”…

Giving you the freedom of speech.

I’m not in employment yet (not claiming social welfare though) and therefore don’t pay income tax, I do volunteer work however and pay tax on all my purchases. Do you include me in those “paying service to the state”?

You don’t really pay tax as a student. I work weekends and my tax credits are 3,000. So I’d have to make 15 thousand before I was paying the 20% income tax. You also get your usc returned.
You get everything back unless you’re working full time.

Some teachers only ever see the education system

Fair enough, but 15 years from now your views might be different again.

How much more had you seen in a year? Moot point.

The biggest benificaries of the ” nanny state ” are the Banks .

i dont think people are looking for more taxes – but regulating the banks would still be a help . Doing away with Glas Steagall was a disaster .

I agree, if the government hadn’t interfered with the banks and let them go under we wouldn’t have been landed with their debt. The last government wanted to get involved with everything and everyone. As does this government to a lesser extent.
I think people should think long and hard before they vote. Whatever your age. Ask yourself do you want a government to control everyone and everything or do you want a liberated society. I personally feel we’re over regulated in almost every aspect of life.

Hey Jack, easy on the red-pills you are handing out, some of us like our welfare cheques

A few naggins they said…

Yes but there are 18 year olds who are very aware. Then they are 60 year olds who have voted who or what there party tells them to without looking into it themselves. Plenty if wasted votes from all ages.

I’ve met some pretty thick adults in my time

Fair point! But what I’m saying is, the older you get, the more likely you are to be politically informed. I’d consider myself very well informed on politics but still the vast majority of people my age aren’t so none of us should be allowed vote, in my opinion.

I don’t understand how you feel it’s of benefit to spite yourself when what the system needs is informed voters of which you are one. I don’t believe very many of the uninformed under 18s would vote in the first place. I think (though its only my opinion) that anyone who would go to the bother of registering to vote before their 18th birthday must have an opinion they wish to express. For this reason I disagree with suggestions that have been made to bring in automatic registration facilitated within the education system, all this will do is to bring in a majority of uninformed young people rather than a sizeable minority such as you and Adam.

or 18-85 ha

Over 16 is reasonable with 17 as the age aimed for. Its not fair to deny someone a vote because their 17th (or currently 18th) birthday is a month after polling day. 15 however is very clearly too young. I haven’t heard anyone campaign for 15 and there’s a reason why. I’m not ware of any other rights gained at 15.

Sure it is. You have to pick a cut off point. Your 18th birthday is that point and is as good as any. That’ll work in favour of some and against others. That’s life.

Yet for some strange reason it’s not standardised alongside all of those privileges bestowed on one’s 17th birthday.

”the vast majority of your peers can’t see beyond Xbox or Facebook.”
Maybe – but quite a lot f adults canrt see beyond the X factor or Big Brother .
People should be allowed to vote at 16 – ” — Cameron is more than willing to throw them in jail for years for minor offences – so if that is the way they are to be treated – they should have a say in who rules – or at least who the Banks employ to rule us .

“18 is a key year” says who? 18 is an arbitrary number chosen by society as some sort of magical year where a person suddenly changes and gets abilities that they didn’t have 24 hours before their 18th birthday. God forbid a 17 year old should be able to buy a scratch card, you have to be 18 to manage that kind of responsibility. No, and I mean NO argument exists against lowering the voting age to 17 that cannot be applied to people over the age of 18. Your offensive generalisation that “the vast majority of your peers can’t see beyond Xbox or Facebook” is a glaring indication of how out of touch you are with todays young people and does nothing but widen the divide between the youth and society as a whole. Try and tell a 17 year old teenager in 5th or 6th year, forced to sit the biggest exams of their lives and subsequently decide the career that they will have for the rest of their lives, that they are incapable of making decisions on topics that will affect them directly for years to come.

Jim & Dylan,

I apologise if I touched a nerve! It’s encouraging to see enthusiasm for voting among leaving certificate candidates. I have no doubt but that you guys could and would make a reasoned and informed decision in polling. I’m just saying that in all probability, you are in the minority.

The fact remains that limits to ‘mature’ activities, such as driving, gambling, drinking, voting etc must be imposed at some sensible level. Society could, if it were allowed for example, limit voting only to those with an IQ over 120, however that would exclude many and would quite frankly lead to revolt as its a ridiculous proposition.

Sensibly, a limit must apply. Personally, I would impose the limit to those who have ‘completed leaving certificate’, ie irrespective of ones age at that time. That way at least, a level of maturity has been demonstrated by the individual.

BTW, you are not ‘forced’ to do your leaving certificate! But I recommend you do. Enjoy your youthful exuberance!
Believe me. Theres Plenty of time to be angry when you are older!

Best of luck in the LC!

The simple answer is to not waste your vote. If no candidate reflects your view then don’t dilute the process by voting for someone you don’t support. Others out there find that some candidates do reflect their views and that might not work out if your wasted vote goes against a candidate where the vote is very tight. Just be sure to vote if a candidate who represents you does come along. Surely you can make a yes or no decision for referenda though?

That’s a ridiculous argument. Adam’s point is that at the present moment he “has the cognitive ability to decide for” himself. By the time your son is 17 he’ll have that ability too, but he doesn’t now. Please don’t make light of Adam’s argument, as it’s his and my generation (I’m about 2 years older) that will hopefully work to make the world better for your son at 17 than it was for us.

@Paul – As outlined by Dónal, I’m putting forward that: “we give the opportunity to have the voices heard of all capable citizen”. ‘Capable’ being the key point and I think 17 should be included in that bracket for the reasons mentioned earlier in the article.

Thanks,

Adam

Please also see my similar question below.

Please see my reply to Dónal below.

Very well put Thomas, such a pity our transport providers don’t have the same thinking with their pricing structure.

Somewhere else means not here, in case you didn’t understand

Dónal,

Young Fine Gael is an organ within the Fine Gael party i.e. I am a member of both. YFG acts as a “lobby” within FG, representing the views of young people to the wider membership. This gives us a much stronger voice, than if we were individuals. It also gives us a platform on committees etc. where the youth opinion would otherwise missed. I should add that it’s not compulsory to be a member of YFG when joining FG, it’s entirely your own preference. So, no, I’m not “confined” by a youth wing.

What makes us unique in comparison to other parties is that, YFG is the only autonomous youth wing of their senior party. This means if the party makes a decision that we don’t think is best for young people, we can call them out on it and recommend what we think should be done instead. Other youth wings don’t have this ability and have to toe the party line, whether they agree with it or not, hence, we have a much stronger lobbying capablity than them.

Adam

Thanks for responding. I’m surprised to hear that the other youth wings have to toe the party line but I take your word on it. It does appear that it might put you in a conflict of interest at times where YFG and FG don’t agree despite YFG members being FG members by default, but that’s your concern, not mine.

I still don’t agree with the line on YFG being the only vehicle for young people to seek political change but I assume you weren’t the one who wrote it. I do note however that you spurned similar rhetoric from Ógra Fianna Fáil on Twitter recently. Such politically charged phrases go with the territory I suppose.

Differences aside, kudos on the article and keep up the good work, I’m glad to see from our interactions here and on Twitter that you’re not as arrogant as some of YFG’s literature might have people assume.

Well perhaps people should think a little more and stop making moot points. The ironic thing is that most people who make such points don’t even realise that they are moot.

Unbelievable, in the scheme of things – you have in fact made perhaps, another moot point.

As have you, isn’t this fun? :)

Moot.

Moot moot!

What a negative attitude you have Kevin, this is a democracy it’s just that a huge amount of people have their heads in the sand but continue to vote nonetheless.

Not so bright Myles. Since you clearly haven’t bothered to browse the previous comments, I’ll copy and paste this here for you:

That’s a ridiculous argument. Adam’s point is that at the present moment he “has the cognitive ability to decide for” himself. By the time your son is 17 he’ll have that ability too, but he doesn’t now. Please don’t make light of Adam’s argument, as it’s his and my generation (I’m about 2 years older) that will hopefully work to make the world better for your son at 17 than it was for us.

Hahahhaha even with the crisis your life at 17 is far better than it would have been a generation ago. As for the cognitive abilities, we’ll have to agree to disagree. You’ll understand when you’re older.

So based on an IQ test some people would never get to vote, while gifted 10 year olds would?

Well the IQ test is just a preliminary idea because I can’t think of a test to prove how informed people are about politicians running for a seat in the Dáil (maybe a few questions related to what the parties are campaigning for or about their history would be a better idea, but I don’t know how that would cover independent runners). I would however honestly place more value in the opinions of an intelligent and informed person than someone who seems less intelligent and less informed regardless of age. I’d probably put the beginning of adolescence as a starting point for age, so 13 or so I’d guess rather than 10.

If you can’t think of a good test, why propose a bad one?

Ah Jaysus Tony, can you take your environmentalist stuff somewhere else?

And why does the sun always rise in the east? That’s blatant discrimation!

How many graduates are not in the workforce due to a lock of jobs? Moot point, not very well thought out. That would also rule out graduates who choose to do a masters rather than taking a job and therefore are not in the “workforce”. Also what about young people who choose not to go to college and therefore never “graduate”? Also what says that everyone graduates at 21?

*lack of jobs

No representation without taxation? If you pay more tax, do you get more votes?

What age are you? I’m 19 and seem to be capable of writing more substance on the matter than you, unless you care to prove me wrong?

Work in the real world, you are an outlier for even being on this board, as righteous as your statement is.

Also, my age is of no relevance.

And no, you aren’t capable of writing to a higher degree than me on this topic, from the evidence one can gather.

You might think you can, but for now enjoy these green thumbs you get — you got a lot to learn.

Ah Michael, that old green thumbs chestnut, thank you for making an irrelevant remark to prove my point. For the record, your statement is about as righteous as mine and on the strength of those thumbs you refer to mine is more justified. Not that I care.