The Government is to give prisoners in Irish jails a postal vote in elections to comply with a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
The decision will affect 3,200 prisoners across the State. They should be able to take part in the next general election if planned primary legislation passes the Oireachtas before then.
Under a strategy devised by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche, all prisoners will be given a postal ballot.
Under the Government's plan, prisoners will be registered to vote in the constituency of their former residence before they were sent to jail rather than in the constituency where the prison is located.
There will be no exceptions made for different categories of crime or prisoner in the draft legislation that is being prepared by the Department of the Environment.
"The view has been taken, given the court judgment, that voting is a fundamental right, so we might as well move as soon as possible.
"There is a hope that primary legislation will be before the Dáil this year, " said a department source yesterday.
Under Irish law, a prisoner's right to vote has never been rescinded by the authorities. In practice, however, the State has never provided prisoners with the ability to vote via a postal ballot.
The Government began a review of the issue last October when the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that the British government had violated a prisoner's rights by refusing him the ability to vote in an election.
The landmark ruling in the case of John Hirst, a British prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter, found that any departure from the principle of universal suffrage risked undermining the democratic validity of the legislature elected and its laws.
The ruling was not binding on the 46 countries that are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, but could have paved the way for similar actions by Irish prisoners.
Ireland is among 13 signatories to the convention that currently prevents prisoners from voting in elections and referendums.
The Government plan, which was drawn up in consultation with the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, is likely to be welcomed by the Irish Penal Reform Trust and other prisoners' groups which have actively lobbied for prisoners to be offered the ability to vote for years.
The Hirst judgment by the European Court of Human Rights diverges from a previous ruling by the Supreme Court in the Republic, which found against a prisoner's right to vote in elections in July 2001.
In a unanimous judgment, the Irish five-judge court found that while prisoners were detained in accordance with law, some of their constitutional rights, including the right to exercise the franchise, were necessarily suspended.