A group of teenage parliamentarians have come together to debate the merits of lowering the voting age in Northern Ireland to 16.
They are members of the Youth Assembly, a 90-strong body of 12-16 year olds, who shadow the role of the Stormont Assembly.
They feed into its legislative programme and seek to influence policymakers around issues which matter to young people.
Lowering the voting age has been talked about on both sides of the border and has come up for debate in both the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The latest discussion comes as An Comisiún Toghacáin concludes a public consultation in the Republic on how to encourage greater participation in elections.
It launched its consultation on a proposed Education and Public Engagement Strategy in response to lower than expected turnout figures in recent elections.
"2024 was a year with more electoral events than any other in the history of the State.
"Close to nine million votes were cast in this country.
"However the level of engagement was clearly less than we had hoped," it said in its consultation overview.
The electoral commission wants the public's ideas on how to encourage more people to participate.
The closing date for submissions is midnight tomorrow.
At Stormont, Youth Assembly members expressed a range of views on the extension of the voting age during a debate in the assembly chamber.
Delegates said that at age 16, many young people fulfilled carer roles, had jobs, and could marry, but were not able to vote.
Others said it was wrong that they had no say in issues such as education and climate policy that would affect them into the future.
Seventeen-year-old delegate Shea said he thought it only right that young people have a proper say.
"I would have engagement with elected representatives but I think that can only give you a limited say.
"We can't choose who's here to actually represent us and I think to have that say and to have our input into the political process would be a lot better," he said.
Stormont's deputy speaker John Blair MLA, chaired the debate.
He said there were mixed views amongst political parties about the rights and wrongs of extending the franchise to 16-year-olds.
"It's crucially important that at every level of government there's engagement with all sectors of society, but in particular with young people.
"Because, very often, with the age demographic of average politician, the youth voice can be overlooked," Mr Blair added.
