Sir, – Your “Question Time” section in the online edition of June 8th posed the question “Should Irish emigrants have the right to vote?”
As an Irish citizen who has lived my entire life on this island, it frustrates and saddens me greatly that I have no right to vote in referendums or presidential elections. I view these as my Constitution, my head of state, and depriving me of the ability to have a say diminishes me. I am no less Irish because Derry is my home, at least that’s what the Belfast Agreement (of which the Irish Government is co-guarantor, lest we forget) promised me. Yet in 17 years, since that document was signed, successive governments have failed to put in place any effective safeguards in respect of my voting rights. – Yours, etc,
PATRICIA MacBRIDE
Ballinascreen,
Co Derry.