Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish 
Government Discussing Giving Voting Rights to Immigrants
Read more about: Government, Immigration, Irish Election, Irish Politics
At a conference in the USA last night and again on The Last Word today, Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan suggested that the government was discussing giving immigrants political rights as a means to better integrate them into Irish life. This chestnut has been doing the rounds in the literature for a long time now as it seems to make a great deal of sense to allow for those who are here over a period of time (in New Zealand only 2 years or so) to partake in the political process.
Minister Lenihan was on with Kevin Myers and stressed it was at present a point for discussion and far from policy (i.e. it will become policy if there is not too much giving out) but it is also a chance to debate immigration in the round he suggested. What do we think though? There are two competing principles at play here from a democratic perspective and they tend to compete;
1) No taxation without representation, it is illegitimate for the state to take taxes from those who are barred from representing themselves as part of the wider citizenry.
2) That only citizens should have political rights. The idea of citizenship is to define the political community and thus that which is to be governed. Extending political rights beyond citizens within a polity is potentially problematic for the effect it has on the worth of citizenship (or does it? Is it merely 19th century hangups infesting a 21st century problem?)
The issue raised by Stephen Collins is also applicable here in that the immigrant population of North Dublin are counted in terms of allocating seats yet do not have an opportunity to elect any TDs. We already have one of the most liberal regimes for local elections in the world and this move would catapult us toward the top in terms of national parliaments. Yet if the cost to citizenship is too great surely we need to focus on generating a pool of citizens (as done in the US). Its the old multi-cultural/assimilation argument all over again.
Anyhow Minister Lenihan, Myers and Simon all seem to agree a debate is necessary and it strikes me that this idea is likely to help that along.
As a sidenote, Myers was quite miffed not to be invited to this do as he feels he is the only one who speaks up on the issue and also reckons we have enough Eastern Europeans here for now. Just some thoughts to debate.
I think that it would only be consistent to allow non-Irish residents vote. A man from Donegal who moves to Cork can vote on who represents the residents of Cork having spent all of a week in the southern county, so why not an Estonian?
At the last election, I decided not to vote in Dublin because even though I’m resident there, I didn’t really care who represented the constituency I was in. Now I could have voted for a candidate based on the outcome I’d like to see nationally, but that might not have been in the interest of the constituency I was resident in. It’s a ridiculous situation, but if you’re going to allow me vote under those circumstances, why not let our Eastern European neightbours?
I have to agree with Niall. I think there needs to be a time limit of residence say 1 year to 18 months for people to get used to the political system. But they should be able to vote.
But I can see where people fear of doing this comes from. A feeling that the country is being taken over by non-Irish. If they vote along traditional lines then this will not surface to much. But if we get a polish party for instance. Then we may see people getting pissed.
Indeed your right but the current norm is that only ‘long-term’ residents (in this country a threshold set at 8 years) are likely to enjoy those political rights. Should it be a big deal that the rights are being given to non-citizens (I tend not to have any problem with the non-national element, this is a political consideration).
I agree with you Simon, its as if recognising the vast numbers here who might like to vote but cannot is some kind of bad thing. They are here so dealing with them is not so much an option as it is a duty.
We should be extending the votes to Irish living abroad first In my humble opinion.