The Bavarian delegation were here half an hour ago, a Chathaoirligh. National newspapers in Bavaria during the German elections of the last 18 months featured full display advertisements for three consecutive days inviting citizens of West Germany — as it was at the time — to vote in their elections. The Australian Government did likewise in the last few years and also the United States Government and none of these countries has any difficulty with the practice.
Let me dismiss this nonsense about 30 or 40 million people voting in Irish elections. This is an enabling amendment to allow votes for emigrants. It does not say nor can it be interpreted to mean that everybody who sails out to sea will have a vote in elections here.
Let me give some of the fail safe measures that other rational countries employ to make sure that we do not all go daft and allow 40 million people who left here 40 years ago to vote. That is not intended by this proposal and was never mentioned by Senator Upton or by any of the people who support voting rights for emigrants.
I heard a statement here last week by an Independent Member that the essence of democracy was no participation without taxation. I never thought I would hear in a democratic Assembly that those who may not be liable for tax or who may be unemployed would not be entitled to participate. That is the logic of that argument.
There is no reason why we should not do as the Danes do and insist that all emigrants with votes contribute tax. That is their fail safe approach. How do Italy deal with 55 or more million emigrants? Very simply. If one wants to vote in Italy, one goes home to vote which cuts out millions of emigrants. One has to be registered in Italy and in the parliament. In other countries one has to be registered at the local embassy and one must go there to vote. Other countries insist that voting can only take place at home. The Spanish constitution contains three pages on voting procedures for emigrants. The Italian constitution also deals with the issue.
It is not a constitutional matter in this country. We can give votes to emigrants without making any change in the Constitution; it requires only a minor change in electoral law where it stipulates that a voter should be normally resident in a constituency.
In this country at the moment, the legislation which denies emigrants a vote is being flouted by every political party at every election. Every time a bus leaves Dublin to take a group of voters to Dingle, Ennis, Sligo or anywhere else, it is as much in breach of that law as if the people came back on a plane from Manchester. I have listened to much nonsense over the past couple of weeks on this issue and I wish people would look into their hearts and become aware of what is happening.
If voting emigrants would overrun the Irish electorate, let us prevent that. Let us restrict it as other countries do to a specified number of years following emigration; it could be for five, ten, one year or for a generation. The US allows second generation people who have never lived in the country to vote at home. To me that is nonsensical but the issue here is one of principle. Do we allow emigrants to have a say in the running of the country that eventually excluded them from participation? We excluded them from participation because we could not provide them with employment. These people did not choose to leave. I do not know of any other country where the native diplomatic corps do not have a vote. I now accept the Minister's indication that they do.
Travellers abroad do not have a vote nor do people abroad on business. If I happen to be on business out of my constituency or out of the country on 18 June, I cannot vote in the referendum. I put it to the Minister that no other European country applies these restrictions. That shows a lack of flexibility.
The proposals made by Senator Upton can be addressed and dealt with and the principle agreed to. A question of numbers can be dealt with by a restriction on years abroad or by a restriction in time. The numbers of possible voters can be dealt with by a restriction on travel, insisting that people come home to vote, or by allowing them to go to their embassy to vote and to register there and also in their own constituency. It is not difficult to resolve these simple administrative matters. Accepting this amendment would not enable 40 million additional people to vote in Irish elections.
The amendment provides for agreement on a principle. After that we may decide on restraints on time, years, generations, on whether to insist on voters paying taxes here as Denmark does. We could insist on people coming home to vote as Italy does, or restrict it to those not long out of the country as Belgium does. I could go on and on but suffice to say that if we join the European Union we will be the only country in Europe making no provision for emigrant representation.
I have made a survey of the voting arrangements made for emigrants in the 12 EC countries. We are the country which shouts loudest about loving our emigrants, which makes the biggest deal about them and which does least for them. We have a duty to give emigrants a voice in the democratic process, a voice which will also restrain us. It would force us usefully to address the issue put so well by the previous speaker of the four green fields. That political problem does not arise for people who have been out of this country for the past five years.
I have spoken to emigrants in New York, as most of us in this House have who believe that the longer they are away, the clearer their view becomes; one deals with that by restricting votes to those most recently emigrated. One proposal from an emigrants' group is that the restriction should be five years. Another was that it should last for a generation and another was that voters should continue to pay tax here. Another proposal provided for travelling home to vote.
I have seen all these proposals and it is just not for people to dismiss them out of hand by talking about 40 million voters in an uninformed response to a sophisticated proposal to change this legislation. The people who propose it here should take some time to look at ways in which it has worked in other countries and look at ways of ensuring that we are not overrun by 40 million people abroad but that we address the crucial issue of emigrant participation.
