An Oireachtas committee has recommended that voting rights should be extended to Irish citizens living abroad.

The Joint Committee on European Affairs also recommended that an electoral commission be set up to establish how best such voting rights could be implemented.

Earlier this month, Minister of State for the Diaspora Jimmy Deenihan said that Irish citizens abroad should be able to vote in Irish Presidential elections.

The Constitutional Convention last year voted in favour of recommending the extension of voting rights in Presidential elections for Irish citizens who are resident outside of the State.

Now a cross-party committee has backed those calls.

During the course of its hearings, the committee was told Ireland is among a minority of EU member states that has not extended voting rights to citizens abroad.

It also heard there was a consensus from the academic literature that a case may eventually be taken to the European Court of Justice challenging the restriction.

The report was due to be published this morning and will be forwarded to the Taoiseach and the EU Commission.