Last Sunday afternoon, a white van advertising a painting and decorating firm called the ‘Emerald and the Eagle’ pulled up in Ailesbury Road.
There’s nothing unusual about this. Given our obsession with extending our kitchens to the size of airport hangers, many of the nation’s less salubrious roads have foreign tradesmen coming and going. Nor is it that strange that the company would be called the ‘Emerald and the Eagle’ — the Emerald representing Ireland and the Eagle being the official crest of Poland. What is interesting is that these lads were coming to vote.
The Polish government set up three Irish voting stations — in Dublin, Cork and Limerick — to extend Polish democracy to some 25,000 Polish ex-pats who the Polish state believe are as entitled to vote as those Poles living in Poland. As far as the Polish government is concerned, Polish citizenship is the guarantor of a democratic voice. The same goes for French, Germans and practically all EU citizens.
In America, the overseas vote is a crucial bell weather in presidential elections. The American idea of the global US citizen, dovetails with its view of taxation. Americans, no matter where they live, are taxed on what is called their “worldwide” income. This means if you are an American citizen and wish to exercise your right to vote and have a say in the running of America, you must pay tax. (This is not to say there are not very well-organised tax avoidance schemes for the rich and famous.) However, the principle goes back to the revolutionary slogan of “no taxation without representation”.
The root of the American Revolution was that the colonists believed they were being taxed unfairly without having the right to send representatives to the parliament in London. The famous Boston Tea Party was the culmination of the campaign to avoid taxes being paid in the US to finance the British crown. It was the spark which ignited the Revolution. If American democracy was founded on the principal of “no taxation without representation”, it is sustained on the basis of “no representation without taxation”.
Now, let’s look at Ireland. The immigrants who live here and pay taxes are not allowed to vote in the general election, but the Irish emigrants who live abroad are not allowed to vote either. So, we have neither the Polish system nor the American system. Why is this? We don’t allow the half a million foreign immigrants who live here and contribute to our economy to vote, despite their tax input to us. We let them vote in local and European elections, but in the Dail election — where the real power is — they are barred.
But even this second-rate suffrage is better than what our own citizens living abroad are afforded. We don’t allow the one million Irish citizens who live outside the country to vote here, despite their citizenship.
The latter can be explained by the fact that if Polish people here want to vote they can become citizens of Ireland, if they want to go through the process. However, the treatment of our own Irish citizens goes against all the norms in the rest of Europe. Bizarre as it must sound to an outsider, the Irish, the country with the longest tradition of emigration in Europe, bans its own people from having a say in the affairs of the country. This is an extraordinarily narrow view of the State and its relationship with the Irish people. Why don’t we follow the Polish model, or French or German?
We claim to be a globalised country. We are always hearing guff about how Ireland is the one of the most globalised countries in the world. Yet, we don’t even recognise the legitimate voice of Irish citizens who live in this new globalised world. Why is this?
Maybe the reason is our political class do not want people rocking the boat, particularly people who are not beholden to them. A nice little cosy system has been constructed where favours, strokes and backhanders are the currency of political power. Any opening up of this clique would devalue the currency and undermine the power base that preserves the status quo.
The Irish emigrants, who in any other country would be entitled to vote, might disrupt things. They would have little or no local loyalty. They might even vote on long-term issues. They might, God forbid, bring new ideas to bear on the election — ideas that they picked up abroad which our political elite could not vet. They would be maverick and maybe uncontrollable. The Irish abroad might not tolerate the state of the country and might have something to say about the failures of the Irish state in areas which they can compare with the facilities in the countries they have emigrated to.
Maybe an Irish medical worker — one of the many thousands of whom have left this country over the years — might have something to say about the health system. Likewise, citizens abroad who have learnt best practice in transport, law and order or the construction sector may dissent from the present status quo.
Is this what we are afraid of? Is the reason we prevent one million Irish who live abroad from voting because the political system believes that it would be disruptive? If Poland, a country 70 places below us on the world rich list, can organise polling booths for its people all around the world, why can’t we? If we really want to embrace the world, we first have to embrace our own citizens around the world. If the way forward is to “think globally, act locally” then giving Irish emigrants who live abroad the vote immediately is the best way to start.
These citizens think globally because they live out there, coming into contact with other people, other systems and other ways of doing things. We could, with their help, act locally, by melding their views with ours. This is clearly what the Polish government is thinking.
As Ireland moves into a different economic phase with growth slowing, house prices falling and tax revenues ebbing away, we need to tap the brains of all our citizens to ensure that this State does the right thing. It must gall people to think that our immigrants, supposedly coming here from countries that are less developed, can exercise their democratic rights and have a say in the affairs of the homeland. Yet Ireland, the country that defined itself by emigration up until recently, gives its exiles the cold shoulder.
Well said David. It seems crazy that as members of the EU, we are entitled to free movement within the union to work, but only if we drop our right to vote at home. We are discriminating against our own citizens based on which member state they reside in!
I do not think we should allow non Irish people to vote in general elections. The migrants would vote for the party that would give them the best deal or benefits and the Irish would have to pay for it. Certain politcal parties would buy the non Irish vote with our taxes. The political party that let the most non nationals, asylum seekers in and then gave them the best deal and benefits is the party that the non Irish would vote for. The non Irish would be granted excellent access to Irish jobs and the Irish would have to… Read more »
Marie, I think you are missing David’s point. He is not suggesting that we allow non-Irish citizens to vote. He is suggesting that we allow all Irish citizens to vote. Currently, if you are an Irish citizen living in France (or any other country besides Ireland), you immediately lose your right to vote.
David, I am glad that you have highlighted this point. It is very annoying for me as an Irish person living in Holland that I can vote in neither Irish nor Dutch elections. Irish political parties know full well that emigrants would have a very important say in general elections if they could vote so they naturally do not want to change things. The constituency model is not appropriate for this kind of voting. As a compromise they could set up an international consituency where emigrants could vote for parties (not candidates) and the seats would be allocated to candidates… Read more »
Marie, I think you need to read what you have said here and perhaps think again, seriously. Answer this question. If you decided to go and live in another country, and eventually settle there, do you not think that you should ultimately have a say in your new homeland? And if your answer is ‘No’, then what you are really saying is that the millions of Irish people living around the world should have no rights or say in their now adopted homes. Correct? There are many that would say your opinion in itself is Nationalistic. The non Irish are… Read more »
I would agree wholeheartedly David, speaking as someone who has been in the US for the last four years while at graduate school it relay pissed me off that I was not able to vote in the last general election. I emailed late night live on news talk just before the election when they were having a discussion about getting young people out to vote and mentioned the point that a lot of people in there twenties spend time abroad either studying or to traveling and that these thousands of young Irish were being denied the right to vote if… Read more »
I’ll go against the grain here. David used the motto ““no representation without taxation“. Exactly. So since Irish citizens abroad are not paying tax in Ireland they don’t deserve representation here. David lauds the possibility that they might be maverick – exactly, since they won’t have to live under any system they vote for. They are 1 million – that’s 25% more than the resident population. Think of how they might distort our politics, for example by getting ‘maverick’ over the northern issue. Yet if bullets began to fly again these mavericks would be thousands of miles away. The other… Read more »
Tomtaltach, Your point is fair but you need to define a point at which a person would lose their vote in their homeland and gain a vote where they live. Many people live abroad for two or three years and have not integrated in their host country. These people should still be allowed to vote in Ireland since they are planning on going back in many cases. I don’t think you should be allowed to vote in both your home and your host country, you should be able to choose. In my case I really want to vote in Dutch… Read more »
Tomtaltach, David used the “no representation without taxation” specifically in reference to the American system, not as the gold standard for external voting systems. In fact, most developed countries offer voting rights to emigrants, while only a small handful require their citizens to pay taxes. (The US, Eritrea, and North Korea are the only ones I’m aware of.) And most Americans who live abroad, in fact, do not pay taxes – you only pay taxes if you make above something like 80,000 dollars a year, although you are legally required to file the paperwork no matter what your salary. Your… Read more »
Aidan,
I agree that a cut-off point would be necessary. This kind of arrangement already exists in many dual-taxation treaties. For example, there is a dual-taxation agreement between France and Ireland. After a certain period in France – I think 6 months – an Irish person is supposed to start paying their taxes there. Something like this could be put in place for voting.
dd, I lived abroad for years and am from Ennis. In response to your comments, I beg to differ with you. I am not saying that all Irish in USA or Australia should be forced to the back of the job queue.I am saying that in many countries e.g. the USA there are quotas that decide how many people should be let in. I think that the numbers allowed to come in should be controlled. Currently, hundreds of millions of people can come here and apply for jobs. This could create a downward pressure on wages. No country in the… Read more »
Marie, EU economic migrants do not have unrestrained access to social welfare. You are forgetting about the Habitual Residency Condition, which requires two years of residency in the Common Travel Area before you can apply for any benefits.
Also, I don’t understand why you are linking home-ownership with voting rights. That implies that the wealthy should have greater rights, and that doesn’t really fly in a democracy.
Noreen, Your point that emigrants simply can’t vote where they live is well taken. And I accept the argument about temporary emigrants such as students. For sure I agree there should be a time limit. You argued that my assertion “That the Irish abroad deserve voting rights where they reside is without question” isn’t rooted in fact. Nor can it be. It is not intended as a fact, merely an opinion. I believe that it is right that legal immigrants anywhere should, after a certain period of time (yes, to be agreed and defined), be allowed fair, straight-forward path to… Read more »
Marie, Your reasoning is highly suspect. You said “The migrants would vote for the party that would give them the best deal or benefits and the Irish would have to pay for it“. The vast bulk of our legal immigrants are here to work and contribute. The recent report from the CSO shows that a higher percentage of our immigrants have a degree or higher than have Irish citizens. These are not spongers. In many cases they work harder and for less than the Irish – which is in itself a regrettable part of the emigration phenomenon and we should… Read more »
Apart from tomaltach, no one else here seems to realise the big problem with giving voting rights to irish citizens abroad..Irelands population and moreover our voting population is too small in proportion to the million or more abroad. So enough talk of poland france usa etc, The possibility of citizens abroad having a large influence in an Irish election which ultimately affects the lives of irish citizens in ireland is a non runner. However There must be a compromise, maybe a time limit of a year or 2.
ITman, most studies show that it’s actually a small number of eligible emigrants that actually vote, so I don’t think it would be as overwhelming as you might fear. In addition, there are ways around this – you could have specific emigrant representatives, for example, as opposed to allowing emigrants to vote in their home constituencies. The overwhelming majority of countries, even those with very high emigrant populations, have worked this out. There’s no reason why we couldn’t. I wouldn’t mind a time limit as a compromise, but I don’t think one as short as a year or two would… Read more »
Marie, “No, it is factually incorrect to say that large numbers of non Irish have bought houses here.” Show us the statistics then Marie if that’s what you believe. i think you’ll be surprised to see that it is this statement that is inaccurate. There are well over a hundred thousand English, Scottish and Welsh living here. There are also over 40,000 Chinese nationals living and working here. I don’t know the exact statistics, but there are also many people from India, Pakistan, The Philippines, Egypt, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many many other countries, all living and… Read more »
Noreen, I think this issue will only be tackled by the Irish politicians if it is forced upon them from the EU. The current voting system in Ireland acts as a barrier to the free movement of Irish workers in the union since any Irish person that moves to another member state (even temporarily) is effectively punished for it. Maybe it’s time for a petition to be sent in to the EU from the million Irish citizens that are affected by this draconian mechanism?
Could it be that the Irish living abroad can not be influenced by the massive amounts of expensive spin
that preceed all Irish elections?
I lived abroad for 11 years and always took an interest in Irish affairs but the obvious lack of constant
local media meant my views of Ireland were more idealistic,long term and what I considered to be broad minded,maybe not having to pay Irish taxes then afforded me this luxury.
They say all politics is local,if thats the case why spend time and money on anything that isnt?
Tomaltach,
Linking voting rights to citizenship is in itself a problem. To become a Dutch citizen, for instance, you must renounce your Irish citizenship which is both complicated and expensive. Moreover renouncing your nationality of many countries can affect your inheritance rights. Long term residency should be enough to get a vote, I have lived in Holland for nearly ten years and follow Dutch politics avidly but I remain disenfranchised.
I am reading this article from a hotel wth some spanish and german colleagues in Stuttgart. We are talking about our kids and their fluency with wireless PC technology and their ability to participate way beyond the physical national boundary. David, we are a virtual nation, no longer bound by where we are, but by our culture and heritage. We converse with other cultures and identify more strongly with our own uniqueness as a nation by leveraging what the “knowledge” enconomy is becoming. Your Diaspora idea is actually starting to look very sound – and this article is yet another… Read more »
Aidan,
Good point – I accept the difficulty with citizenship. It may have come across in my comments that I insist on citizenship before voting rights. That’s not the case – I am not too bothered about the mechanics of it, but for me it’s essential that you can vote where you live (again with an acceptable delay after you’ve moved). The corollary for me is that you lose your right to vote in the country you have left (again after an acceptable delay and perhaps other criteria).
Philip, David’s idea that Ireland should draw on the resources of its diaspora is sound. That we should make better use of the network of Irish connections is beyond doubt. But the virtual nation idea can only go so far. In the end, the national territory is the unit over which we have sovereignty. If an Irish citizen moves to Germany and stays there, there is very little the Irish nation can do for her. If you’re in Germany, what point voting for say an Irish party in favour of public transport? The Irish government aren’t going to build a… Read more »
your article explains a lot David, i reckon people with brains left here during the famine, survival of the fittest etc, so the gene pool left here was not the best, i.e. this had led to the current political mess, FF et all. Remember, in FF, the term pulling a stoke/fast one etc is to be admired. To be called a cute hoor is the top honour, but what these people forget is that we are now longer ruled by britain so the stokes pulled are actually against themselves, oh the dumbness of the native paddys is amazing. Its in… Read more »
I am currently living in the UK for over two years and I would have liked to vote in the last general election. However I do see most of our political representatives in the Dail as hopeless and gobshits!!! When the whole political and financial system collapses in Ireland, I will be coming back over to Ireland with my hundreds of millions of euros as I believe in a complete totalatarian system. In this system I will do the following: 1 Establish financial centres in each of our beautiful cities around Ireland. 2 I will create great transport hubs for… Read more »
Tomaltach, The international voting system you’re proposing is in utter opposition to the international zeitgeist – most countries are strengthening the links between them and their citizens abroad. (as evidenced by the fact that more and more countries are granting their emigrants voting rights – nearly 100 countries do, and the high-emigration nations of Mexico and the Philippines are among the most recent additions to that list.) In an era where people are more migratory than ever, when people are keeping in better touch, and short-term migration is more common, doesn’t it make sense to encourage people to keep in… Read more »
Nuclear weapons? Glen, that’s very scary indeed. What’s the point of Ireland having an agenda for peace if we spend citizens taxes on stockpiling nuclear weapons? Would it not be more sensible to improve our health service, invest in our education system and build more schools?
I think you’ll find that Kevin was being obtuse.
Noreen, doesn’t it make sense to encourage people to keep in close touch with home base? Most countries want to harness the power of their international communities: consider such factors as remittances, investment, entrepreneurship, investment, ambassadorship, and international trade links. I agree and I explicitly stated that it makes sense to draw on the resources of our diaspora. And I mean that for those who are not Irish born as well as those who are. This is a resource that we already tap – especially in Irish America. But we are making efforts elsewhere. For example, the Irish College in… Read more »
The Emerald and the Eagle? David, you should be the guy who thinks up names for fake companies in episodes of Murder She Wrote!! (are such throwaway comments allowed here???!!)
Hi Tomtaltach, I don’t think I’m gushing with anything – certainly not a happy-clappy something! My point is that your proposed system would call for all nations to withdraw the right to vote. I was pointing out that the international trend, which you don’t seem to acknowledge, is in the other direction, toward granting voting rights. I have already acknowledged up above that I can live with limits on voting rights – as I said before, some other nations set time limits, require a declared intent to return, or require returning home to vote. Some countries dedicate particular representatives for… Read more »
I’d like to agree with everything tomaltach has said, consider the damage the PD’s have done to this country and then consider the influence a large number of american ex-pats and their political donations might wield. In the wake of the 9/11 attack if fianna fail were willing to rent out shannon as an American airbase, then their tent at the galway races for the run up for the 2002 election would have made the millenium dome look like a handkerchief. If the British were sucked into the nightmare of Iraq then I think the Irish army would have been… Read more »
Hi SpinstaSista, Your absolutely correct and I was just pointing out in around about way that is what every other country in the World does that have nuclear weapons like China, India, Packistan, US, Russia, and maybe Iran). These countries would be better off without these weapons and provide the money instead to eduacation and health care but aparantly thats not how politics operates. Has the idea of a country changed from being a cultural place for its inhabitants to a cold place where everyone is welcome as long as they pay there taxes? In think alot of the ordinary… Read more »
“The Irish emigrants, who in any other country would be entitled to vote, might disrupt things. They would have little or no local loyalty. They might even vote on long-term issues. They might, God forbid, bring new ideas to bear on the election – ideas that they picked up abroad which our political elite could not vet. They would be maverick and maybe uncontrollable. The Irish abroad might not tolerate the state of the country and might have something to say about the failures of the Irish state in areas which they can compare with the facilities in the countries… Read more »
It’s not only whiparounds – FF fundraised in the US for years, and FG has started fundraising there again this year.
If shoddy government policies forced people to emigrate in the 80s I can’t see them voting for the same shower who were in government back then. People who grew up and were educated in Ireland but had to emigrate to find work aren’t going to have a rosy romantic view of this country.
And thats why they will never be allowed cast a vote,from abroad, in Irish elections. Cute hoors still reign. Votes soon for our new nigerians residents-no votes for irishmen abroad.! Cunning like this is the reason Fianna Fail are still in government!!. Like Butterkrust bread ,some things never change..
Bye the way David, if you will permit me to stray from topic, I think the horrendous and draconian new laws effecting hundreds of thousands of (young and old) learner drivers on Tuesday next, merit your observations. Frankly I think it is unbelievable what Minister Dempsey has announced.It reminds me of the taxi deregulation debacle some years ago (due for a hearing in the High Court in the new year). The parallels are amazing.In both instances a decade of neglect, indifference, and inactivity, resulted in sudden drastic change. After long years inured to the suffering and inconvenience of a multitude… Read more »
Latest news from the government tonight ,and minister Dempsey re the fascinating learner driver debacle, is that the law is not (really) the law after all!.Things are not as they seem. Each individual garda on checkpoint duty is a “law unto himself”.!
He will have absolute discretion to impose the new legislation-or no!
(dependent on whether he likes the look of the driver stopped at the checkpoint or not.?)
What an amazing country.! Every garda is a kind of demi-god.! grotesque, unprecedented,bizarre, unreal.?
SpinstaSista – you’re so right there – even back in the late sixties and early seventies, when I was abroad, the exiles resented the government’s blatant cronyism. The effects of that practice are now evident in the shoddy management of our public services – how could it be otherwise, with no exposure to a properly managed system in the greater world. They muddle through on day to day basis and then hide behind those self serving actors that we call politicians. The Irish people are truly remarkable, time and time again they elect leaders on the basis of a narrow… Read more »
I think that the 40 responses so far prove that this is a subject of interest for many many Irish people, those living in Ireland as well as Irish emmigrants living abroad. I moved to France 20 years ago when I was 19. I have never in my life voted (either in Ireland or France). It is extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain French nationality regardless of how long you have lived in France, what you do or if you have children with French nationality. My son has dual nationality (French & Irish), I have an excellent job as… Read more »
It is incredible that so many citizen of the E.E.C cannot vote just because they have moved from one part of this wonderful “United States of Europe” to another.No point in petitioning Fianna Fail.So, is it time the overpaid, duplicitious (sic) Brussels/Strasbourg bureaucrats did something useful at last?.’Do we have to ask foreigners to enfranchise us? Who will organize the new movement? Who are the new Parnellites.? Is there a new Daniel OConnell in the house-any house -any place.? From whence will a new hero of democracy emerge to bring light and hope and a new spirit of resistance to… Read more »
For the past 10 years, I have petitioned TDs and MEPs asking about the voting rights of Irish abroad. For the most part, every Irish politician is against the idea. I can vote in European and local elections here. But I can’t vote in Belgian national elections. I would like to. But that will never be afforded to me. I am Irish. I am European. I am Irish living in another European state, but yet one of the most basic and fundemandal democratic rights has been taken away from me by the Irish government. Had it been the other way… Read more »
Excellent contributions from all, even the misguided (Jean) Marie (Le Penn) from Ennis. Living in the wrong century dear, but would have done well in the late 30’s / early 40’s. On a more serious note, as an Irish National living abroad for many years, I can honestly say that: 1. I have no interest in voting in Ireland. I would not be qualified to exercise such a right. Indeed, I would abstain from exercising such a right before I did untold damage (as a Maverick) 2. Giving people like me a say in Irish politics would not only be… Read more »
Good debate all round. But wasn’t the reason that Irish passport holders were excluded from voting here due to the fact that they were more likely to vote Sinn Fein (or worse!). It’s well noted that emmigrants and their descendants can be more nationalistic than those who stay at home and therefore are more in touch with the nuances of the situation on the ground. The conservative nature of the Pakistanis in the UK compared to those at home in Karachi is another example. While I think it is awful that Irish-born people who move abroad are disenfranchised, we have… Read more »
Hi Lonely Expat – I understand that there are lots of Irish people abroad like you who have no interest in voting, but I don’t think that’s an argument against emigrant voting rights. Most countries that have emigrant voting rights have relatively low rates of participation, simply because many people feel as you do. But I don’t think that someone choosing not to exercise a right has anything to do with whether they’re entitled to it in the first place – many people who live in Ireland choose not to vote, but that doesn’t lead to them losing their vote… Read more »
Donal, I haven’t heard anyone arguing for votes for passport-holders. That would be a different issue, and I’d agree with you that that would be a very difficult argument to make! I think you’re right that fear of the Sinn Fein vote is something that hovers over this debate, but I also think it’s an out of date notion and based on unfair stereotyping. I just don’t think there are many emigrants who have left in the last ten years or so who would oppose the peace process. And don’t forget the key role that Irish expats in the US… Read more »
The reasons are obvious to any Irish person living abroad. When Church and State were hand in glove there was no way that the corrupted values of emigrants could be allowed to infect the purity of the resident Irish. With the demise of the Church it is now State alone that does not want voting based on clarity and unimpeded by emotive self-interest (e.g. Emperor’s New Clothes style house prices). By continuously dismissing the views of emigrants as those of people looking at the past through rose tinted glasses, Ireland is missing out on an opportunity to force successive governments… Read more »
Hi Noreen, its not that I don’t have an interest in voting. I yearn for that right – bot not in Ireland (which I exercised for many years when I was resident in Ireland). Having been absent for so long, I really cannot tell the difference between the electoral manifesto of Fiana Fail, Fiana Gael, PD’s or Sinn Fein – I’m just not in touch anymore. When I return (yes I still hold that passport), I will read up, becomed an informed member of the electorate and exercise my voting right. At the present though, am not qualified to influence… Read more »
Lonely Expat: Like you, I cannot vote in either Irish elections or elections in my country of residence. I would love to be able to vote here in Belgium, but to do that requires becomming a Belgian citizen – which is quite pointless when both countries are EU member states. Therefore, since I am an Irish citizen, I believe that I should be allowed to vote in Irish elections. I don’t feel I’m out of touch at all with the happenings at home. In fact, I’m probably more in touch now, and more interested and knowlegable than I was when… Read more »