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Ditching the Diaspora
Read more about: Irish Election, Migration, Vote Saturday
Seanachie, of the superlative Pleasures of Underachievement highlights something that perhaps should be getting as much prominence as the Weekend vote issue but has, so far, managed to go completely under the electoral radar.
There are still no facilities for Irish citizens living outside the island of Ireland to vote. Seanachie, who lives in Paris, explains that due to other commitments he can’t make it across for May 24th, as he had in 2002.
But, he rightly argues:
“I shouldn’t have to return home. Depriving tens of thousands of other Irish people living abroad of a vote is a grave violation of democratic rights and is something that shocks foreign friends of mine when I inform them of it.”
Considering Bertie, in his harried and hurried ‘ask no questions’ press conference on Sunday, extolled the simple virtue of Irish people getting out to vote an inability to come into line with other European democracies seems, well, feckless.
Seanachie considers it an infringement of his democratic rights:
“I may have a touchingly old-fashioned belief in the power of one man, one vote but if it’s a delusion, it’s a comforting one. Will The Irish Times, so taken with the stirring example of democracy at work in the French Presidential elections, be writing an editorial deploring this scandalous lacuna in the democratic process closer to home?”
Well, there’s 25 days to go so they have plenty of editorial opportunities to wax indignant. It’s unlikely they will, however, even though its an issue that gained prominence in previous elections.
Glór an Deoraí - Irish Emigrants Voice, an Emigrant association based in Britain tried to debate the issue in the late 90’s. One of the arguments against allowing the Diaspora to vote is that they are out of touch with the issues. So, in an experiment to see if the voting patterns varied significantly for ex-pat voters they conducted an experiment in the 1997 Irish Presidential election. By encouraging Irish people abroad to express their preferences for each of the candidates on their website they found that the pattern of the voting was the same as the national vote.
Now this experimental mock vote is not scientific and is difficult to verify, but it shows that a vigorous attempt to address the issue.
Glór an Deoraí response to the Department of the Environment’s “Representation of emigrants in Seanad Eireann”, which dates from 1996, make interesting reading as it addresses many points around the debate, such as the potential size of the electorate.
“Various figures have been put forward in relation to the Irish abroad. The Department of the Environment have calculated that up to 900,000 could be eligible to vote, which equates to 24% of the overall Irish population, or 20.83% of the voting population. This is quite obviously nonsense, and we enclose the net migration figures for the past twenty years.[...]
A realistic assessment of the emigrant vote would be closer to 50,000, and this would involve an issue that interests the electorate such as a referendum or Dáil election.”
Again, this is an old article. It would be interesting to find out what the current CSO estimates are for the number of Irish living abroad.
In the survey conducted by the Department of Psychiatry, MFRC Medical College of Wisconsin, which Glór an Deoraí refer to, the writers point to a certain ambivalence regarding the right to vote among the Irish abroad. But to take the survey as a guide they are certainly more in favour of it than not.
“We asked our respondents if they believed that people born in Ireland but living abroad should have the right to vote in Irish elections. Whilst 46% responded no, 41% responded yes, another 12% responding yes, but only with provisions. This certainly seems to be a contentious issue, underscored by the fact that only 4 respondents did not express an opinion.”
I could find no other details about the debate online but if anyone else knows anything please let us know.
Its interesting to note where this debate ended. According to the About page on the Glór an Deoraí website, the organisation had lobbied politicians throughout the Nineties. Although the Fine Gael/Labour Government roadblocked the issue the lobby was approached by Fianna Fail prior to the 1997 Election.
We supplied them with all the relevant information sought, including technical and legal advice.
When the general election of spring ‘97 was announced, the various parties announced proposals on the issues of the day. Most notable was Fianna Fail’s policy document, in which they proposed to introduce emigrant voting rights by the year 2000 . However, when the new Govt was formed in June ‘97 (Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats) they published a document called ‘An Action Programme for the Millennium’ and surprise, surprise, no mention of emigrant voting rights for the Irish abroad. As we write, the Minister of the Environments office has been in contact with us twice in which they have stated ‘ The minister intends to review the issue of votes for emigrants as soon as possible and will be in contact with you to arrange a meeting as part of that process’
We will update you as soon as news is forthcoming.
That was in 1997. That Government is still in power.
Nonsense.
Giving votes to Irish citizens living permanently or semi-permanently abroad (like me) is granting power to those who won’t have to bear any of the consequences of their actions.
The real disgrace is the tens of thousands of semi-permanent residents of Ireland who through the fact of having passports from Poland, Lithaunia or other countries are denied any opportunity to have any say in the government which will rule them.
I absolutely agree with Bonapart. I have not lived in Ireland for five years. I haven’t payed a cent of Irish tax in that time. I may be proud of my nationality, but I don’t face the everyday trials, tribulations and, of course, advantages of my peers at home. Why on earth should I have the right to vote in the general election?
I actually think Ireland’s approach of basing voting rights on residency (and one would hope that is a reality for the immigrant population) makes a lot more sense than giving the vote to expats as other European countries do.
Hey Lads, it’s not an either / or situation. We can have both, you know. Also, citizenship in Ireland is based on birth, not residence. The government’s failure to provide a system of voting for expats is unconstitutional.
In fact, it’s akin to the recent victory for prisoners, which enabled them to vote in elections. Prisoners don’t pay taxes either, or are they resident in a constituency. but they can vote.
Yes but voting isn’t and shouldn’t be based on citizenship. It is estimated that there are 80 million people in the world who claim to be part of the Irish diaspora. Even if only a small proportion had passports, it would still be a significant percentage of the voting population (the numbers above look far too conservative to me). Living in the US, it is clear that many of those people would vote on the basis of myths rather than facts. There is potential for that to seriously disrupt the democratic process in Ireland given the predictability of where those votes would go.
I actually do think it is either/or. The decisions of the government on taxation and public services have a direct impact on prisoners (who at least live in Ireland). They have no impact whatsoever on me or any other expat. Perhaps for people who own property in Ireland a vote would be justified, but that is the only case I can think of.
I strongly disagree. You need to live in this country to have an informed conscience and therefore to make a well-informed choice on how to vote. People who haven’t lived in Ireland for decades or however long aren’t going to have that - many will have lost touch with political and economic developments in Ireland in the intervening periods. I know other countries have voting-rights for their nationals abroad. However, I have real misgivings with allowing people who are paying their taxes to a foreign government rather than the Irish govt to vote in politicians to set taxes for other people. It’s all very well for Irish people resident abroad to want to make decisions that will not affect them materially - but it’s the Irish people resident here who will benefit/lose out from the policies of whether govt comes to power. With tens of thousands of Irish people abroad, and our PR-STV electoral system, such an expanded voter-base could well end up being kingmakers in terms of deciding with bloc gets in. I think that this would be wrong - especially considering it would amount to people making decisions that will affect other people - but not those expatriates exercising their franchise. I don’t like the idea of people living abroad and who have no intention of returning long-term making decisions that will only affect others - particularly considering those people - due to their absence from this country - will not be able to experience first hand how the policies of a govt affect people actually living here.
The fear seems to be that an uninformed wedge of voters, the size of which could be substantial, would be created by opening up the vote to those living abroad and that these voters would not have to deal with the consequence of that vote.
I understand that fear. I thought about it when I wrote this, and I address it partly by pointing to the study which indicated that half of those living abroad who were surveyed felt that they shouldn’t have the vote. This is because they have left the country for good and are now allowed to vote in their adopted country. This is a very good point. But it doesn’t deal with the nature of the much more mobile diaspora, if indeed they can be called that, to day. I’m thinking about people who travel for a year or two as part of work. In my company there are people who go abroad for 8 or 9 months at a time. There are those who travel to Australia for a year full of intentions to return and continue their career. People live in Saudi Arabia etc on 3 year contracts in order to get money to buy houses back in Ireland. Even those who live on the continent are able to get back to Ireland on a regular basis because of the joys of Ryanair.
But the more important point raised is one I certainly agree with. Voting should be extended to non-nationals who have been here at least five years.
And I’ll leave it there for the moment.