Senators were in fine fettle on Wednesday as they debated proposals from the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, to elect three of their number to represent emigrants. Hardly anyone had a good word to say about the plans, although the criticisms came from widely divergent, even contradictory viewpoints.
It is proposed to give votes to a potential 900,000 emigrants who have been away for up to 20 years and who had previously lived here for a minimum of 10 years. Emigrants would vote in a single constituency. Once the register is drawn up the Minister would be empowered to divide the electorate into two or three constituencies by order. The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have been suggested as possible constituencies, but this would overlook the substantial numbers of Irish people working in continental Europe.
There are few if any precedents for such a scheme elsewhere, in spite of the fact that most other European states, and many elsewhere, provide as a matter of course for their citizens abroad to have full voting rights. Citizenship in the modern world entails such rights, after all, especially in nation states which claim a monopoly on rights of representation. The fact is that Ireland has a comparatively generous citizenship law, which can be conferred to the second or third generations, as we have utilised in the field of sport. But does representation imply taxation, and therefore some contribution to this State and this economy?
The debate provided yet more evidence of the unease and passion, even the guilt, with which emigration is discussed in this country. Some of the choicest hypocrisies are reserved for it. Lamented in many a speech, it has nonetheless been extolled as a safety valve protecting social stability; or lately as a necessary preparation for middle class careers, as if involuntary emigration was a thing of the past. To be fair, the senators were relatively free of such cant. They concentrated their attention on the technicalities, the difficulties and the absurdities of allowing the representation of such a large number of Irish citizens in such a small number of senate seats. Compilation of the register with such meagre resources as seem likely to be made available, is one major area of difficulty; guessing the likely turnout is another.
Some senators argued effectively that to extend the vote to emigrants would be to give an irresponsible group the capacity to hold the balance of power in the Oireachtas. Others fastened on the tokenism of the proposal compared to the more progressive practices in states as various as the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Turkey, all with sizeable emigrant populations and diasporas none of which have been destabilised by such political representation.
Official Ireland is still coming to terms with the newly discovered Irish diaspora, which is described in the Government's White Paper on Foreign Policy as one of our most valuable national resources. It is gradually being realised that in a world made smaller by communications and becoming more preoccupied with matters of cultural recognition and identity, this evaluation is indeed true. It is a pity that there is not a more generous acknowledgement of it in the Government's proposals for political representation of Irish citizens abroad.