Review of Ireland’s Engagement with the Diaspora
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently completed a review of Diaspora policy to examine all elements of engagement with the Irish abroad.
The Department invited those at home and abroad who are interested in and affected by issues of emigration, and the wider questions of engagement with the Diaspora, to contribute their views to the review.
Please find below my Submission
to the Irish Abroad Unit, Department
of Foreign Affairs
Introduction
Leaving
Ireland
you lose something of yourself, perhaps it is the deep sadness experienced in
that parting with your people, your land, your own place. Often this is only felt
in those intense moments of alone, out amongst strangers who sometimes have very little
regard for their own people; never mind us, the immigrant.
As
a person who left Ireland
for the first time in 1977 I still remember this sense of loss acutely.
As
a father with both daughters in Australia I am not alone in feeling a sense of frustration at the ever increasing ineptitude of the political class. In my own view they are now at the terminus of their gravy train and it it past time to get off.
This consultation by the Department is most welcome and I believe that all of us can
serve our family, friends and relations abroad best by engaging positively with
Government North and South. There is
consensus that there is an urgent need for policy modification and new policy introduction.
It
is imperative that the Governments and Departments act decisively.
Action / Suggestion Points
There
will most likely be a degree of repetition in comments / ideas put forward,
nonetheless I would like to make the following suggestions;-
1. Create a dedicated Minister / and
Department for the Diaspora
Comment: it is not about squeezing a few Euro out of a few
people being dragged back to Ireland
reluctantly. It is about recognising that the cultural, artistic and spiritual
psyche of the island lies in our engagement with and appreciation of those
outside Ireland.
The Diaspora are as much a part of Ireland as those of us who remain
behind.
2. Create the post of Diaspora attaché,
in sufficient numbers and deployed this year in geographic areas that reflect
the distribution of the global Irish as indicated in Appendix 1.
Comment: the post of Diaspora Attaché could be created more
or less immediately within DFA. These Diaspora Attachés would effectively
become the cadre of the new Department of the Diaspora.
3. Produce a definitive / official analysis
of the global distribution of the Diaspora to provide for detailed academic
research and to guide ongoing policy decisions.
4. Produce real time quarterly data on
emigrants
5. Create a number of Action Teams
focusing on emigrants of differing periods, for example;-
Action
Team A: those who have left in the last 5/10 years
Action
Team B: those who have left in the last 10/20 years
Action
Team C: those who have left in the last 20/40 years
Action
Team D: those who have left in the last 40/60 years
Action
Team E: those who have left in the last 60/100 years
Action
Team F: those who have left in the last 100+ years
Each
team’s responsibility would be engagement with the Diaspora of the period in
the most appropriate manner.
6. Create Action Teams split by age
segmentation. The objective being to develop ‘help/intervention cases’ from the
characteristics of emigrants by age distribution. For example this may well be
served best by using the mediums of sport, music, art, literature, language as common
bonds that remain long past the date of leaving.
7. Create a global award system for
those proactively participating in Diaspora entities worldwide to the betterment
of their fellow emigrant and the global Irish. As an example these could be
named 'The Boru Awards' and would essentially be our global cultural celebration
of all things Irish.
8. Allow the Irish abroad to vote on
the simple premise if you hold a current Irish passport you are eligible to
vote.
Comment: the length of time it is taking to resolve this
issue and indeed the whole manner of treating those who have left as no longer
being of Ireland
is a disgrace and needs changed immediately.
9. Use real world technology to achieve
improved contact and collaboration with and among the Diaspora.
Comment: a cursory look at the use figures for Gmail, Google
Apps for Business, G+, Facebook, Paypal, EBay, Twitter, Pinterest will show
that each of these companies deal with billions of pieces of data daily.
NOTE: It would be crucial that any of the crowd involved in the electronic voting debacle
are not allowed near this.
10. Create an annual ‘Ideas for Ireland Competition’ operated
at club, school, college, university and open levels to garner ideas from our
entire tribe worldwide.
Conclusion
My own personal experience
having worked and travelled all over the world is that my fellow Irish are
always there with a helping hand - but you have to be able to find them and ask
nicely.
One of the most encouraging things about technology is the ease of
communication that it brings. We can now
find them.!
Looking at this on a wider
front Google or Facebook or Twitter could set up a Irish community for 5 or 6
million in the while of an afternoon and add the other 60 odd million the next
day.
We could all vote on
everything by teatime, plus we could post photos of each of us at our tea. We
could share our own detailed analysis with friends on our mobile, ipad, Chromebook,
tv or even our ‘Glasses’.
There is no longer any
technological impediment to real time data, real time voting or opinion seeking
and global connectivity with many millions of the Diaspora.
What remains is the political
will and foresight.
Des Donnelly,
Co Tyrone.
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Ps: I am happy to engage in dialogue with anyone on this subject and to elaborate on any of the suggestions made here, the contact form here would be the ideal way to do.
Appendix 1 – the Global Irish
