Going home to vote - Students reveal why they are voting in the General Election

As the General Election draws near, thousands of young people across Ireland are registering to vote and considering who they want to see in government. Polling day on November 29 will also be the first time many will get the chance to have their say in who gets elected.

Issues such as the cost of living crisis, housing and job prospects across multiple disciplines have proven most pressing for these voters especially given that 1 in 10 young people in Ireland are planning to emigrate due to these three factors.

Following the official confirmation of the election date, anyone who needed to avail of postal voting had just two days to act.

READ MORE: Explained: Everything you need to know about the upcoming General Election

Information on how to register is not easily accessible to the general public unless they are willing to carry out some research, according to two students who recently went through the process.

Third year student Molly McNamara said: "I am currently on Erasmus in the University of Granada in Spain, in the faculty of Political Science and Sociology. I was aware that there would likely be an election this side of Christmas, but knew nothing of my right or ability to vote outside of Ireland.

"The only information I had received was from another individual in my course saying we were not able to vote abroad. I tried to find information online by searching keywords and specifically trying to find information for Erasmus students, but found nothing."

READ MORE: All you need to know about posters during the General Election

She explained: "I came home from school, sometime after 8pm my time and I was reading the news. It was announced that the Irish Elections will take place November 29, and that the Dáil would likely be dissolved the next day, Friday November 8.

"Now, the only information I had seen prior to reading this update was that I wasn't going to be able (to vote). This was until I saw on Cllr. Shane Hickey O Mara's story about Erasmus students being able to vote."

Molly said that she saw the Limerick Councillor's social media story shortly after reading the news.

She decided to continue her research and managed to find some information on citizensinformation.ie and checktheregister.ie about how to vote as someone outside of Ireland.   

From there, Molly decided to make this information more accessible to others in case they were in the same position as her, she explained: "I began posting this information on my story and telling everyone I know that we are able to vote and explaining to them how they are able."

"The politicians need to know that issues like housing are critically important, and we let them know via our votes."

Union of Students in Ireland (USI) are running workshops to inform students about how Irish politics and voting works, as well as looking at the priorities and policies of different political parties so that students can make an informed decision about who they want to vote for.

Politics 101 Information Seminars will take place Thursday November 21 at 6pm and Friday November 22 at 12pm, further information can be found on USI's Linktree on their social media profile bios.