Fine Gael’s pre-election promise regarding embassy voting in Presidential elections has apparently been forgotten. On Wednesday, Sinn Fein TD Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin South Central) asked the following question: The Taoiseach made a pre-election promise on political reform to give voting rights to the diaspora for the presidential election. Will the Government consider fast tracking… Continue reading What’s happened to Fine Gael’s pre-election promise on embassy voting?

Informal indicators of emigration trends always intrigue me – we only get formal stats from the Central Statistics Office once a year, so any numbers that pop up in the meantime are interesting, if not necessarily reliable. From the Irish Independent comes this one: The number of calls to 11850 directory enquiries seeking contacts for… Continue reading Relocation queries up, say directory enquiries

The experiences of today’s young emigrants to Australia should be researched in order to understand their lives compared to the lives of earlier emigrants and those who remain in Ireland, suggests an Irish economist writing in an Australian website. Colm Harmon, Professor of Economics at Australian National University and also at University College Dublin, notes… Continue reading Economist calls for research on new Irish emigrants

The government issued an update on the Certificates of Irish Heritage. The certificate is intended for those who are not citizens but who would like official recognition of their Irish affinity. The initiative was announced in June 2010 by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, who said at the time that the first recipients would… Continue reading Certificate of Irish Heritage coming… soon?

There has been speculation that Taoiseach Enda Kenny might choose  a representative of the diaspora to serve in the Seanad. Reports say that he will be making the announcement of his chosen representatives this week, but he has so far made no comment on whether he was seriously considering the move. The speculation is partly… Continue reading Will Kenny nominate a diaspora senator?

I’m a little late on this, but I wanted to note that Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore has announced the second Global Irish Economic Forum. It will be held on 7-8 October, 2011. I’ll post up some more thoughts on this later, but in the meantime, here’s the press release from the Department of… Continue reading Second Global Irish Economic Forum: Dublin Castle, 7-8 October, 2011