Billy Lawless (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for attending today and I also take the opportunity to thank the Taoiseach for announcing a commitment to hold a referendum to allow Irish citizens abroad to vote in Presidential elections. This is an issue which I, along with many other groups, have campaigned for over a number of years and which was recommended by the Constitutional Convention in 2013. Too often in Ireland referenda have become debates about subject matters that have no relationship whatsoever to what the people are being asked to vote on. It is very important that from the outset those of us advocating this change on behalf of Irish citizens living overseas do so armed with the facts, and use the opportunity to not only hold a national conversation about what place Irish citizens living abroad should have in our society, but also what the functions of the office of Uachtarán na hÉireann exactly are.

The President is a symbolic figure, but symbolism matters even more so for those citizens of this State who are Irish, who love this country and who want a meaningful place in our society even if they do not live within the territorial land mass that is governed by this State.Immigrant voting has emerged as a global democratic norm. While immigrant voting is not there yet, Ireland is relatively progressive in allowing immigrants the right to vote in local elections. I recognise that an advance of the proposal for a referendum the Government needs to first decide which category of overseas citizens should have an entitlement to vote. Other nations with very high levels of overseas citizens let their emigrants vote. Of the top five nations in the OECD, by emigrant percentage, Ireland is the only one to disenfranchise its emigrant citizens. New Zealand, Mexico, Portugal and Luxembourg all allow their emigrants to vote. India, the nation with the largest absolute numbers of emigrants and a global leader in diaspora engagement is also in the process of enabling its emigrants to vote. I welcome the options paper published earlier this month by the Government. We will make our formal submissions in due course but I want to make the point to the Minister of State that this is a once in a generation opportunity. I hope the Government objective is to enfranchise the highest number of citizens abroad possible, not to create further divisions through arbitrary controls such as criteria on the number of years living abroad. We have to be bigger in our ambitions and not simply replace old barriers with new, albeit less restrictive ones.

I have great faith that citizens living in this State want to extend the franchise to their children, cousins and friends living overseas and give them a meaningful role as well as delivering a clear mandate to our next President, or at the very least the one after that, that he or she represents all Irish citizens at home or abroad. The President will be as much their ambassador as ours which is something I truly believe Irish people living here would like to share in the recognition of. What a celebration of modern Irish identity that would be - a nation of emigrants with a President who leads all of us and is elected by all of us. I can think of not better way to remind the world that Ireland is a global nation. Ireland is not exiting its relationship with its European partners. We are not shutting down our borders but we are extending them. I thank the Minister of State and look forward to debating these matters further.