New Ireland needs to hear from its expatriates on pressing preoccupations

At the launch this week of his book on the Irish abroad, Tim Pat Coogan dwelt on their diversity, talent and many achievements, as well as on their historical and contemporary misfortunes. The relationship with Ireland is uneven, often stronger from their direction than ours.

In recognition of the need to cultivate that relationship to mutual benefit, he invited the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, who launched the book, to appoint a junior minister with responsibility for the Irish abroad.

Embassies and consulates are already geared to cater for their interests and welfare. But it is good to have the issue raised in a political context - especially so, given the great reluctance of official Ireland over the years to consider giving political or institutional representation here to the Irish abroad.

That will be more difficult to sustain following the commitment in the amended Article 2 of the Constitution, which states: "Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage."

The Government has referred the issue of Oireachtas representation for citizens in Northern Ireland and overseas to the all-party Committee on the Constitution. The committee is expected to publish a report on the matter later this year and has been receiving submissions from interested parties. It is to be hoped the issue is not sidelined by other more controversial ones, including electoral reform and abortion.

Irish citizenship is available to those born in the island of Ireland, their children born abroad and, in some cases, their children and grandchildren. There are an estimated three million Irish citizens living outside the island, about 1.2 million of them having been born here.

Most of them are in Britain and the US and most of the remainder in English-speaking Commonwealth countries. An estimated 40,000 are in EU states other than the UK. Estimates of those with Irish ancestry range as high as 70 million.

Through the 1990s there was a sea-change in attitudes towards the Irish abroad. Gradually the term diaspora was accepted to describe them, as awareness grew that this is a tremendous resource in an era of globalisation. It provides a bridge between the local, national and global; it multiplies international influence, and it opens up channels of communications and economic contacts not available to other small states.

All this is recognised internationally - not least by large states such as China with a very significant diaspora of its own. But compared to other European states Ireland has been slow to realise the benefits of developing political or institutional relations with its citizens and those of Irish ancestry abroad.

Attitudes towards representing them in the Oireachtas have been overwhelmingly negative, for three main reasons. The first goes back to John Locke, who insisted that the right to vote and the duty of paying taxes are directly connected. Such a large number of citizens abroad might upset election outcomes in a closely contested STV system of proportional representation. And there was an additional fear that highly motivated expatriate republican groups would vote disproportionately, distorting results and complicating coalitions.

The resulting political impasse stopped consideration of reform dead in its tracks, despite the increasingly positive public rhetoric heard from Presidents Robinson and McAleese. It also tended to rule out consideration of other means of representing expatriates in the Irish political system, which could supplement their possible representation in the Oireachtas.

This is dangerously short-sighted. Comparative evidence suggests strongly that such relationships can wither if not channelled and expressed institutionally. It is insufficient to leave the cherishing of that special affinity solely to voluntary groups. The Belfast Agreement, as an increasingly influential example of political innovation across political boundaries, surely invites further consideration of how links between Ireland and its expatriates might be developed.

A study by the Council of Europe of links between Europeans living abroad and their countries of origin distinguished between three groups of state policies on emigration. Available at http://stars.coe.fr/doc/doc99/ edoc8339.htm

A "national outreach" or "proactive" group has established legal frameworks to protect expatriate rights. Mainly a Mediterranean phenomenon, it includes Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Cyprus, San Marino, Greece and Turkey. Recently, Switzerland and especially the newly independent countries of central and eastern Europe joined this group.

A second laissez-faire group, mainly northern European (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK) has had long-standing traditions of emigration and gives their expatriates few rights. The third group, Ireland and Austria, is in transition from laissez-faire to outreach policies.

Most of the outreach group have set up representative institutions for their expatriate communities. Typically they are called Councils of the Greeks/ Portuguese/ Italians/ French/ Spanish abroad.

They have assemblies which meet regularly, select executives and have budgets allowing them to pursue welfare, education, taxation, cultural, economic policies and political communication with their home countries.

Normally these budgets come under departments of foreign affairs, with ministerial and official responsibilities well defined. An EU study this week showed Ireland much the least well represented country diplomatically among the 15 member-states. The writer Albert Hirschman has made a famous distinction between exit, voice and loyalty policies. Ireland has followed an exit policy for so long, based on the assumption that expatriate loyalty can be maintained only by a distant nationalist rhetoric.

That no longer applies. If a civic patriotism and a more equal relationship are to be developed it would be as well to examine new structures carefully. We certainly need to hear about the experience of the Irish abroad in economic development and in anti-racism and multi-cultural affairs, to name only two pressing preoccupations of the new Ireland.

pgillespie@irish-times.ie

Tim Pat Coogan, Wherever Green is Worn, The Story of the Irish Diaspora. London: Hutchinson.