Kenny says Government to act on voting rights for emigrants

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said the Government will move as quickly as possible to introduce measures to allow Irish citizens abroad to vote in future presidential elections.

"This is an issue that has been around for a very long time and there have been quite sophisticated advances made in terms of voting from abroad and we need to set out terms of reference in terms of the conditions that will apply and who should be eligible to vote. That should be a priority for the new Minister for the Diaspora," Mr Kenny said.

Speaking in Manchester on the second successive day of a visit to Britain during which he planned to campaign for a Remain vote, the Taoiseach refrained from commenting on next week’s EU referendum .

Mr Kenny told Irish community leaders at Manchester's Irish World Heritage centre that his decision was out of respect for the pause in campaigning by both sides in the referendum following Thursday's murder of Labour MP Jo Cox.

He paid tribute to the 41 year-old MP, who was shot and stabbed outside a constituency advice clinic in the West Yorkshire town of Birstall.

“A mother of two young children, going about her business as any councillor or MP would do, any public representative, and to be shot down and taken away from her family and her children is an appalling crime.

"And on behalf of the people of Ireland, I would tender our sympathies and condolences to Brendan and their two children, to her extended family, to the members of the Labour Party and to the people of Great Britain, at the loss of a public representative, taken away before she had completed her work as a public representative," he said.