However, global economics and the mobility rights afforded to European Union passport holders will inevitably mean that all western democracies will have to face the issue of extending meaningful democratic representation to their nonresident citizens.

The 1937 Constitution understood that the Irish nation embraced more than those who lived in the State. Yet, we acted as if the only way to make all the pieces fit was to link the democratic rights of citizens with a territorially based legislature. Now we understand that it may be a good thing for people to have multiple affiinities. For example, the younger generation see themselves as being both citizens of Ireland and of Europe. Most of us also understand that we have responsibilities as citizens of the world. People living in the North are able to be Irish or British or both. Enabling citizens in the North democratic representation in the Seanad would be a clear demonstration that democracy can be freed of the shackles of the antiquated nation-state conceptual model.

I should make clear that there are very concrete reasons why nonresident citizens need the vote. Often legislation in Ireland on important matters such as family law and taxation affect nonresident citizens. Governemnt departmental officials often make a real effort to facilitiate our input, but that is not the same as having an elected parliamentary representative as an advocate.

Finally, the American cry of “No taxation without representation” is a red herring. As I pointed out, many people of voting age in Ireland who pay no taxes are not deprived of their right to vote. Nor should they be. In most jurisdictions, taxes are collected from those who can afford to pay them for public services to which they are entitled. Nonresident Irish citizens are not entitled to most of the services available to citizens resident in the State.

Some countries, such as the United States, do tax on world income. Whether such a model would have a net benefit for the Irish economy is something the Government could examine. However, I would urge everyone to appreciate that there are real benefits as well as costs to extending the vote to nonresident Irish citizens. By extending the vote to all Irish citizens, our parliament will not just represent citizens of a relatively small country, it will be harness the power and influence of the entire Irish nation which has a global reach.

My real hope is that a new party that represents the disenfranchised youth of the country gets its act together failing that I will be voting for Sinn Fein provided I get my guarantees from Mary Lou written in lipstick if she has to.

I remain to be convinced that giving Irish citizens who have emigrated or those with citizenship who have not emigrated (ie. Northern Ireland residents with citizenship) the right to vote for the Senate will significantly contribute to ensuring that our power is used for the common good, legitimately.

As an aside, Martin has suggested contributing towards the costs of elections. Why not go one further and suggest “no representation without taxation”? Note that people with low incomes here pay VAT, excise duties etc – just as visitors do and we do when we go abroad.

Martin assumes the continued existence of the Senate.
As you well know, many small states (eg. Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand) have only one national house of parliament.

At present more than half (14 of the 27) the EU member states have unicameral parliaments.

For the record, the parliamentary status of EU Member states is as follows
Bicameral: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Nederlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, UK

Unicameral: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden.

Croatia, which will join the EU in July 2013, has a unicameral parliament.

I can’t think of any reason for denying non-citizen residents the vote.

Attempts to enhance our governance must face the fact that our present constitution means that the Government must be in and or the Dáil. The Government seems to be sub-committee of the Dáil. However it ceases to be the Government unless the Taoiseach retains the support of the Dáil. Hence the need for Government to control the Dáil.

No amount of non-constitutional measure will change (to the Senate or even the Dáil) will alter that basic reality of the current Constitution.

At present, we are living with the results of bad governance eg.
1) Staggering unemployment, as the IMF stated recently;
2) Lack of trust – over years. The Edelman market research company publishes an annual Trust Barometer for various countries.
The 2013 report on Ireland found “Levels of Trust in Ethics and Morality in Ireland are very low – people do not trust government or business leaders to tell the truth, make ethical decisions, solve social issues or regulate problem sectors;
The primary reasons for people’s lack of trust in government were found to be poor performance and incompetence;
The primary reasons for the general population’s lack of trust in business were found to be a combination of perceptions of corruption or fraud and the wrong incentives driving business decisions;
More Irish people (59%) trust the European Union than their own national government (18%) to manage the Eurozone Debt Crisis. This contrasts with UK and Germany where more people (almost half) trust their national Government. ”

This 2013 finding follows what Eurobarometer polls have found over the past 10 years ie. that most Irish people tend not to trust
• The Dáil – varying from 55% in 2003 (when things seemed good here) to 69% 2012;
• The Government – varying from 59% in 2003 to 70% in 2012″

3) Our banking crisis is “…. the costliest since the Great Depression in terms of the economic havoc it wreaked on the country,” according to the paper by International Monetary Fund researchers … Ireland is also the only country in the world currently suffering from a banking crisis that features among the world’s top 10 worst banking crises, the authors conclude, lending weight to the idea that our banking crisis is much worse than the problems in other countries…. The researchers study banking problems under three headings — fiscal cost, increased debt and loss of economic output. Ireland was in the top 10 in all three categories.”
lrish meltdown was world’s worst since 1930s — IMF report Irish Independent 28 June 2012 http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/irish-meltdown-was-worlds-worst-since-1930s-imf-report-26869930.html report on IMF Research Department Working Paper WP/12/163 Systemic Banking Crises Database: An Update Luc Laeven and Fabián Valencia.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2012/wp12163.pdf

I agree with Noel Whelan’s comment on this point.
1) By-elections can also disrupt the balance of the majority – either in the Dáil or within the parties which support the Government in the Dáil. When FF lost two-by-elections in Cork, Jack Lynch resigned as Taoiseach to be replaced by Charles Haughey.;

2) Note that over one-third of the TDs (57, inlcuding two Ministers) elected in the February 2011 General Election were elected without reaching the quota. To my knowledge, nobody questions their right to be TDs. I think it important to keep the link with the electorate even if some more TDs would join the Dáil having stood for election but did not reach the quota

3) By-elections distract Government and the Dáil from proper governance. There are too many examples of policies and measures being adopted on whimsical grounds during by-elections. As an example, in what other country would a government build two new non-interconnected rail-based urban transport systems in the first years of this century? The strange Government decision (ie. not to link the two LUAS lines in the centre of our capital city from the beginning as proposed) is the direct result of a PD transport policy adopted for the 1998 North Dublin by-election arising from the resignation of Ray Burke from the Dáil. The PDs did not have any transport or environmental policies in their manifesto during the 1997 General Election