EMIGRANTS SHOULD have the right to vote in Irish elections for up to ten years after they leave Ireland, Labour’s presidential candidate, Michael D Higgins suggested last night during a speech to London Irish emigrant groups.
The coalition between Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left during the mid-1990s had “devoted considerable time and efforts” to finding a solution that would help emigrants to “retain a voice in our democratic system.
“Those efforts were unsuccessful, but I believe that it is time to look at this issue again,” he said in a speech titled “The Irish Diaspora and the Irish Presidency” given in the London-Irish Centre in Camden, in north London.
Some of the problems centred on keeping an electoral roll that would not be open to fraud, but technological change meant that the difficulties encountered about the compilation and maintenance of a register “no longer arise”.
Saying that he could not be “prescriptive” given that he is a candidate for the presidency, the Labour TD said he believed that the issue should be given over to the constitutional convention due to take place next year.
“One formula that I believe is worthy of consideration is that those who were on the electoral register, or would be entitled to be on it, should be able to retain the right to vote in some, or all elections for a specified period, perhaps five to 10 years.”
Promising, if elected, to build relations between the Irish at home and abroad, Mr Higgins earlier told The Irish Timesthat he believed one of the President's nominations to the Council of State should represent emigrants.
Acknowledging that emigration was for many “a difficult choice”, he said that the new generation now leaving Ireland are “for the most part travelling in somewhat better circumstances than the Irish of the past, with a higher level of education, confidence in themselves and their own abilities.
“We, all of us, live in one world now, infinitely various, full of undiscovered joys and surprises.
“I would earnestly hope that today’s emigrants will savour their lives and remember that they have a nation still, a home to return to,” he said in his speech.
“I hope and expect that they will remain a part of the national conversation, a part of our evolution towards a better life for all in Ireland and a fulsome degree of engagement with those less fortunate than us abroad.”