Emigrants deserve a Seanad vote

Any reform of the Seanad should provide for the election of a number of senators by emigrants, writes John Bruton.

Any reform of the Seanad should provide for the election of a number of senators by emigrants, writes John Bruton.

It is disappointing that the Minister for Foreign Affairs has, in his submission to a Seanad sub-committee on reform of the upper house, opposed the election of some senators by Irish citizens living abroad.

The rainbow government published a consultation document in 1996 proposing that Irish citizens living abroad for up to 20 years be entitled to elect three members to the Seanad. I had in mind three one-member constituencies covering different regions of the world.

Of course, it is entirely understandable that many people would not want emigrants, who do not pay taxes here, to have a vote in Dáil elections because the Dáil is the tax-raising house of the Oireachtas. The Seanad, on the other hand, does not have the power to raise taxes and merely can make recommendations on finance bills. If there is to be emigrant representation, the Seanad is thus the right place to have it. There were even more practical considerations for choosing representation in the Seanad.

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One of the issues that had to be tackled was the practicality of issuing ballot papers and collecting votes from among the emigrants. A Dáil election has to be over within a maximum of four weeks and one could not defer the meeting of the Dáil as one awaited the return of ballot boxes from western Newfoundland!

In contrast, the Seanad campaign is a long drawn-out affair and would allow plenty of time for the collection of ballot papers.

The Minister's suggestion that representation for emigrants should be by means of someone chosen by the Government for their special "awareness of emigrant issues" is undemocratic and elitist.

It implies that Mr Cowen believes that emigrants have not the capacity to decide for themselves who has "awareness" of their problems and that that decision should be made for them by a government composed of people, none of whom are actually emigrants.

After all, Irish emigrants who are graduates of either Trinity College or the National University of Ireland have a vote already in the Seanad election on, so why not extend the same privilege to Irish emigrants who are graduates from other universities or non-graduates?

An election campaign for Seanad emigrant seats would provide for the active democratic involvement of emigrants in a process of election.

This involvement in itself and the campaign and debate that it would create, would bring Irish emigrants in touch with one another and would reduce the sense of isolation that many of them feel.

Loneliness, particularly among elderly Irish emigrants, is a huge problem. A Seanad election campaign would, in a small way, reduce that sense of isolation.

I believe that the involvement of senators directly elected by emigrants would greatly enhance the quality of debates in the Seanad. It would bring expertise to the floor of the house of people with practical experience of separation from their native land.

There would, of course, be problems with the costs of travel of emigrant senators, but air travel costs have fallen in recent years. The cost of the attendance of the emigrant senators in Leinster House would only be a fraction of the huge cost of the annual exodus of ministers for the St Patrick's week each year.

Indeed the willingness of ministers to use the Irish diaspora as an excuse for tax-financed travel each March is in stark contrast to their willingness to be open-minded about giving the Irish diaspora a voice, through the Seanad, in the law-making process of their native country.

I hope that Mary O'Rourke will show herself to be more open-minded in this matter than Brian Cowen apparently is.

John Bruton TD was Taoiseach from 1994 - 1997