[caption id="attachment_68225" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Older Irish voters are more likely to turn out on election days."]
Enough is enough they are saying.
About a fifth of people who did not vote in the last Irish general election are either disillusioned with politics or uninterested, a survey on electoral habits has revealed.
The Irish government's Central Statistics Office reported that more than a third of people allowed to cast a ballot did not because they were not registered.
Elsewhere, 11 percent of non-voters said that the main reason they did not go to the polls was because they were not interested in politics, while another 10 percent said they were disillusioned.
Fifteen percent of non-voters blamed being away from home on the day, 11 per cent on difficulty getting to the voting station, five percent on living too far from the polling station, and two percent blamed a lack of information.
The CSO, however, revealed some discrepancies in its survey compared to the actual turnout figures.
Its research found that 82 percent of people voted in the 2011 general election even though the reality was a turnout of 70 percent.
Experts said the huge overstatement was usual in election surveys as non-voters may be reluctant to admit not going to the polls, or a low turnout among people not surveyed.
"Despite these shortcomings, the survey results provide a sound basis for analyzing the reasons for not voting and also for contrasting voters and non-voters in respect of their socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes," a statement from the CSO said.
The report also showed that younger people were considerably less likely to vote in 2011 than those in older age groups. It found 92 percent of people in the 55 to 64 age group voted in 2011, compared with 62 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds and 73 percent of people aged between 25 and 34.
The CSO said turnout remained lowest among young people, students and unemployed people, while a lack of education was directly linked to a lack of interest in voting or politics.
