There has been a “notable lack of engagement with young people” by political parties throughout the General Election campaign, The National Youth Council of Ireland has said.

Over 600,000 people aged from 18 to 29 are eligible to vote in tomorrow’s General Election.

The number of those registered to vote, however, is unknown as of yet.

On Breakfast Briefing, The National Youth Council of Ireland's Director for Policy and Advocacy Catherine Walsh said she thinks encouraging young people to vote is not “a hard sell at all”.

“I think when we look at the massive influx onto the register before the deadline - the last two days 55,000 people went on to register – we’ve no doubt that large swathes of them were young people,” she said.

Politically engaged

Ms Walsh said from the NYCI’s engagement with young people and through their member organisations, it is obvious that young people are politically engaged.

“Young Social Innovators did a survey of 16 to 27 year olds in Ireland recently, and political engagement was a really key focus of that survey,” she said.

“It looked at the cohort people of young people who are more actively involved and we've seen that 78% of 21 to 27 year olds and 58% of 18 to 20 year olds have already participated in some sort of voter election.”

Ms Walsh said she thinks the campaigns from political parties in the lead up to the General Election have not engaged with young people as much as they should.

“I would say that there's been a notable lack of engagement with young people during the course of the election by political parties,” she said.

“Even looking at manifestos that's very obvious, that there's a real stark absence in many of the main manifestos of engaging with and talking to young people and looking at some of the issues that matter to young people.”

"Taken for granted"

The issues that are “relevant in the general discourse” are relevant to young people, Ms Walsh said.

“I think while young people know the [voter] issues… I don't know if they can see themselves reflected in the general election discussions, bar maybe some tokenism,” she said.

“I think they might show that tomorrow, when they are casting ballots.”

Ms Walsh said she thinks young people have been “taken for granted”.

“There's the apathy that, ‘Young people don't vote’ or ‘They're not engaged’, when we know ourselves from looking at activism, whether it be digital activism or issues like climate change, social justice or mental health, young people are very much tuned in to what's going on in the world,” she said.

“It's at the peril [of political parties] to have taken for granted that young people aren't engaged, when really they are.”

Ms Walsh said the NYCI are pushing to lower the voting age to 16, which the Electoral Commission have been looking at as part of their draft research programme.

Polling station. 7/6/2024 Photo Leon Farrell/Rollingnews.ie