The Citizenship Referendum – The Government’s Proposals

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Tuesday June 08, 2004 20:36 by Margaret

How the Givernment plan to legislate on the citizenship issue "Once the Referendum is passed".

The Citizenship Referendum – The Government’s Proposals

The title of this post comes from a document available on the Dept. of Justice website. I hadn’t received the referendum booklet until last Friday and to try to find our exactly what the wording was and how significant the changes to the constitution were going to be, I went looking for something on www.justice.ie. The most relevant document I found was The Citizenship Referendum – The Government’s Proposals, which was on the main page at the time. It details the proposed changes to the constitution but also a proposed draft Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2004. One of my main concerns about this referendum is passed is that the issue of citizenship will then be a matter of legislation, which ultimately seems to me to mean a numbers game in the Dail. The opposition can rant all they want but with Fianna Fail having a majority just about everything goes their way when it comes to putting things to votes. An example of the kind of thing the government would like to do is given in this document:

“Once the Referendum is passed, the Government will bring forward the Implementing Bill containing proposals on the lines set out in this document. It will be for the Dáil and Seanad to debate that Bill in the normal way before its enactment into law.

In broad terms, the draft Implementing Bill at Appendix 1 has the following features:
· A person born whether north or south to non-national parents, either of whom has been lawfully resident in the State for at least three out of the four years preceding the birth, will have an entitlement to Irish citizenship. (For non-EEA national parents, periods spent in the State for study purposes or while awaiting the determination of an asylum claim will not count. This is the same as for non-EEA applicants for naturalisation.)

…………………….. If a person born in Ireland to non-national parents does not come within any of these categories, then he or she will not have an entitlement to Irish citizenship.”

Maybe this isn’t much different than the naturalisation laws at present but I’m appalled that they would think of not allowing people waiting on asylum claims or students to have the same status as others. Not allowing asylum seekers to count their time spent here is pretty much what I’ve come to expect from Fianna Fail but what’s wrong with students? Surely someone who might come to do a degree, or a PhD even, and has a child with another foreign student after spending three years in Ireland should be allowed to claim citizenship for their child. Such students are contributing economically, socially, and in often in research and development terms to the country.

The government would have us believe that this referendum is an easily understood cut-and-dry issue. This is a only a proposed bill but it gives an idea of the sort of legislation that the government would like to put in place. Why haven’t they been telling us about their legislative plans “Once the referendum is passed”? (They could have at least used an “if”).
I would have liked more than a week to debate the issue and get my head around the implications for both the Yes and No vote but that seems to have been the point. If people don’t know what’s it’s all about, they might believe the Fianna Fail spin!


The document:
www.justice.ie and select Publications and then Select “Immigration, Asylum and Citizenship”