Madam, - It is right that students and those working away from home should complain about disenfranchisement.
The Irish tradition of holding mid-week elections is perhaps the best way of ensuring an inadequate turnout at the polls. Holding the general election on a Thursday while at the same time encouraging young people to vote is a glaring contradiction. Many of our neighbours hold elections on a Sunday and the 85 per cent turnout in the first round of the presidential elections in France is the only example needed to illustrate that weekend voting works.
It is not only the timing of the election that is out of sync with other countries. On RTÉ television last week I enviously watched coverage of hundreds of French citizens queuing outside their embassy in Dublin ready to cast their vote.
Unfortunately the same privilege is not extended to Irish citizens living abroad. Ireland is in a minority of democracies that does not allow its citizens living abroad to cast a vote at the respective embassy or by postal voting.
This is doubly enraging given that citizens of another sovereign state, the UK, are entitled to vote in the Irish general election since the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1984.
Permitting UK citizens to vote for Dáil Éireann candidates while disenfranchising Irish citizens living abroad is a contradiction of massive proportions. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK O'CALLAGHAN, Centre for European Law and Policy, Bremen, Germany.
Madam, - The students whining about being disenfranchised by the Government's decision to hold a general election on a Thursday should spend less time whining and more time informing themselves about the democratic election process in this country.
Any student in full-time third-level education has the opportunity to apply to have their vote moved to the constituency in which they are studying or to apply for a postal vote for the constituency in which they live.
Ignorance is bliss, it gives free licence to complain. - Yours, etc,
LAURA EGAR, Shankill, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Numerous commentators and readers have highlighted the contrast between the ease with which French citizens resident abroad have voted in the recent stage of their presidential election, and the inability of Irish citizens in similar circumstances to exercise their franchise.
Given that Ireland's population is a fraction of the more than 60 million citizens of France, and we are likely to have a much smaller number of citizens resident abroad - perhaps some hundreds of thousands - organising a postal ballot for a presidential election, for example, should not be an insurmountable task.
I do not believe the majority of the Irish population would want to disenfranchise those Irish citizens who were forced to emigrate when economic times were so harsh, and who worked so hard to send money home to their families. These reluctant expatriates are spread far and wide, it is true, but are no farther away from Ireland than is French Guyana or Martinique from France.
With so many emigrants returning to our shores in recent years, having maintained their ties to this country for decades in many cases, the argument that Irish citizens living abroad should have no say in this country's future seems churlish at best. - Yours, etc,
Senator MARY WHITE, Seanad Éireann, Leinster House, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Just a reminder to all politicians and their electoral "machines" that following the election, not only have they to remove their posters from the lampposts but also the unsightly and untidy cable ties keeping them in place. Many fine lampposts in the Georgian area of Dublin are covered in these awful twists of plastic. - Yours, etc,
PEADAR KELLY, Malone Gardens, Dublin 4.