Voice of the people being ignored
There is an enormous democratic deficit in the relationship between Ireland and the EU that must be recognised and promptly repaired so that the sovereign voice of the people is listened to and heeded.
This hiatus is evident beyond the agenda connected to the fiscal compact and the brinkmanship and doomsday options presented by ministers — were there to be a referendum to change the Constitution. Three of the nation’s 12 MEPs elected in 2009 have now retired and been replaced automatically by others chosen from a replacement list.
These replacements have neither presented a proposal to the electorate to describe their credentials nor do they have a mandate from the people. None of them even stood as a candidate in the 2009 election, so from a European political perspective these replacement MEPs are total strangers.
The list from which they are chosen was presented by parties and independent candidates to the returning officer in each constituency before the election even took place — as if it were a matter of personal, confessional expediency over which the electorate had as much influence as they had in choosing the cast of a pantomime.
The consequences are that over 194,000 Irish voters have been disenfranchised while a process of highly remunerated and generously expensed “jobs for insiders” has thrived.
The procedure to fill the vacant seat mid-term of any retiring or deceased MEP is governed by national law. Irish law provides that it is not even necessary for a candidate, or a replacement, to even be a citizen of Ireland to represent an Irish constituency.
Candidates are merely prohibited from standing for election in two member countries at the same time.
Why, therefore, should the European Assembly Elections Act 1984 not be urgently amended so as to prescribe that when an MEP retires, or dies, in the course of the life of a parliament his, or her, votes are examined by the chief returning officer and allocated to the next preference given by the voters to determine who the replacement is?
The Irish Government must demonstrate unambiguous leadership in giving concrete expression to the sovereignty of the people, especially in the elevated strategic context of our relationship with the EU and the grave sacrifices pertaining to this.
Myles Duffy
Glenageary
Co Dublin
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