Sir, – Billy Cantwell makes the case that Irish citizens abroad should be allowed to vote in Irish elections (“Irish people aged 25 to 44 are emigrating again. Giving them the vote in Irish elections is a no-brainer”, Opinion & Analysis, February 18th).
I disagree.
I am a dual citizen. My family having emigrated in the late 1980s, I returned to go to college 10 years later and remained in Ireland.
While I return to the other country I have citizenship in, I do not live there and am fairly unaffected by who has been elected. Is it my place to tell people living there how they should be governed? It isn’t, nor do I have to live with the consequences of it. Am I fully aware of the implications of my vote in a country I don’t live in day to day? I don’t think I would be and therefore would never look to vote in their elections, although I can vote in a general election. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
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It is a choice to go or to stay and part of that choice is not being able to vote in future elections – many who leave may leave reluctantly but they do go and lots have great lives in the place they have moved to – but what about those who stay, those who keep the lights on, paying high taxes and a high cost of living to do so? Should they not have more say in how the country is being run and their taxes being used?
The author uses an Australian model as an example. Its population is nearly 26 million, about five times the size of ours. Australia also has mandatory voting, which Ireland does not, meaning its overseas vote would have a lesser impact than it might for us. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH BYRNE,
Fairview,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – Billy Cantwell considers it undemocratic to deny Irish emigrants a vote. What is undemocratic is expecting the resident population to accept a government whose election was at least partly secured by those who will not have to live under its jurisdiction.
We now have full employment and emigration is no longer powered by necessity. Those who opt to leave should not have the power to oblige the stayers to accept an authority their own numbers might have rejected. – Yours, etc,
MÁIRÍN de BURCA,
Dublin 3.