Ireland is a representative democracy in which citizens have sovereign political power within the rule of law. This confers responsibilities as well as rights to participate in elections. They determine who are to represent citizens at local, national and European levels and which parties form governing coalitions. While this is not the sole determinant of power and the allocation of resources in this society, it is a precious and hard-won freedom to be democratically involved. That is why it is important to exercise the right to vote in today's elections to more than 880 seats on local authorities, and to 13 seats in the European Parliament, which is becoming a more powerful EU institution. The exhortation also applies to the constitutional referendum on citizenship.
Declining levels of turnout in successive elections here and elsewhere in the democratic world have been widely discussed and analysed. Growing prosperity and falling levels of trust in politicians are affecting the willingness to vote. The trend in Ireland saw turnout in local elections fall from a national average of 64 per cent in 1979 to 50 per cent in 1999. A similar pattern applies in European elections and national elections. We have been too slow to adapt electoral registration, voting days and timings, technology and civic education to social change in order to minimise this trend. The polls open at 7 a.m. today to facilitate commuters and shift workers.
Voter turnout is affected by the quality of campaigning and candidates as well as by longer-term trends in civic engagement. On these criteria this local election campaign has been uneven. It is difficult to generalise across such a diversity of localities, where different issues and personalities are involved, but the overall impression is more of continuity than change, with opinion polls showing little shift between the major parties. In the European elections, by contrast, lively competition between parties and especially between personalities standing for the same party have produced a number of extremely tight and unpredictable contests.
Personality has counted more than party and issue differences in the postering and advertising. It is wrong to make too sharp a distinction between them, since personality counts in Ireland's electoral system. In contrast to many other of the 24 European Union member-states, face-to-face campaigning and canvassing have put candidates here directly in touch with voters. It is important that voters should use their franchise fully by voting right down the lists to their final preferences.
More valid conclusions about the likely trend in national politics can be drawn from the local elections than from the European contests in these circumstances. Attention will focus on how Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats fare in comparison to a potential alternative coalition between Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party. Has Sinn Féin reached its ceiling of support? How will independents fare? You will determine the answers, but only if you cast your vote.