The referendum to restrict the citizenship rights of children of foreign nationals will be held on June 11th, alongside the European Parliament and local elections.
The date was accepted yesterday by the Cabinet despite strong objections from the Opposition, who believe that it threatens to open a potentially divisive, racist campaign.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, is to discuss the referendum's wording and arrangements for the Oireachtas debate in meetings today with the leaders of the Opposition parties and their party whips.
The legislation providing for the referendum must be signed into law no later than May 11th because referendum wordings must be before the people for 30 days before being put to a vote.
Defending the Government's action, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said: "I do not believe that an extremely reasonable proposal will be transformed into any kind of racist proposal purely by dealing with the matter on the same day as an election. It is not a complex, difficult or divisive issue. This will only be the case if people purport to try to do that. I certainly will not do so, and I urge others not do so."
The decision will mean that the Dáil and Seanad will resume a week earlier after the Easter holidays, though legislation needed to cover electronic voting has to go through at the same time.
Maintaining its cautious attitude towards the referendum, Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said his party "recognised the need to address this problem".
"To date, the Government have done very little to secure the support of parties like Fine Gael, when they announce the date of the referendum without any consultation with Opposition parties and have published no detail on the proposed amendment," he said.
A Labour Party spokesman took a more definite stand: "We have said from the very beginning that it was totally inappropriate to deal with a potentially explosive issue in an election campaign. That is still our view. We are appalled at the way that the Government has handled this.
Sinn Fein TD, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the Government's decision was the "height of irresponsibility" which showed that it was "callously and cyncially" exploiting this sensitive issue for short-term electoral gain. "The Government's decision today has virtually gauranteed that race will become an election issue."
The Government maintains the referendum is needed because the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which stated that every child born on the island of Ireland is an Irish citizen, is being abused. This right was enshrined in Article 2 of the Constitution after the Agreement was accepted in a referendum, leaving the Republic with Europe's most liberal citizenship rights.
In 2001, 3,153 people were granted residency because they were the parents of Irish-born children, while this figure rose to 4,027 in 2002. Nearly a quarter of all births in the three Dublin maternity hospitals were to non-nationals. In January 2003, the Supreme Court ruled by a five-two majority that non-national parents of Irish-born children did not have an automatic right to remain here.
However, the court judgment has not led to a fall in the number of applications for asylum from over-16 females, who still make up 60 per cent of the numbers lodged with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
The Government plans, it is understood, to change the Constitution so that citizenship will only be granted to a child if one of his/her parents has lived on the island of Ireland for three years.
