Fine Gael will back the referendum to restrict citizenship in June if the Government cannot be persuaded to postpone it.
The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party last night, during which many speakers accepted that citizenship rules are subject to some abuse.
In a letter to Fine Gael last night, the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said nearly 700 British women gave birth in Dublin maternity hospitals last year. Besides Irish women, the top five nationalities giving birth were: Nigerian (1,515), British (677), Romanian, (469), Filipino (235) and Chinese (239).
Though the document does not make it clear, it seems certain that the British women live here, rather than being among those who travel in search of an Irish passport.
The Filipinos are most likely to be among the 5,000 Filipinos working in the health services, who were recently offered further incentives to stay here.
Nearly 1,900 applications for asylum were received by the Department of Justice in 2003 from pregnant women, the Minister revealed. In 2003, 251 women turned up at the National Maternity Hospital in the final days of their pregnancy, he told Fine Gael TD, Mr Jim O'Keeffe.
"Seventy were to Irish nationals, eight were to EU nationals, 163 were to non-EU nationals and 10 were unrecorded," Mr McDowell said in reply to questions tabled by Mr O'Keeffe two weeks ago.
He went on: "The reason for the level of Irish nationals in this figure is because they were transferred from other hospitals."
He was asked by Mr O'Keeffe if more could be done to ensure air and ferry companies did not carry women in the late stages of pregnancy.
He replied: "We are aware that some airlines operate restrictions on the travel of women in late pregnancy. However, in circumstances where a women wishes to travel notwithstanding her advanced pregnancy and chooses not to reveal her condition to the airline, there is little that the airline can do." Children born to recognised refugees will be entitled to citizenship: "However, an entitlement to citizenship will not be retrospectively conferred on a child born to a recognised refugee while he or she was an asylum-seeker. The reason is that such a regime would create an incentive for persons to come to the State with a view to having a child.
"A child born to an asylum-seeker before the determination of the claim will not acquire an entitlement to Irish citizenship. If the parent is subsequently recognised as a refugee, the question of naturalisation will be considered favourably in suitable cases," he told Mr O'Keeffe.
The Minister said 5,471 births to non-national mothers took place in the three Dublin maternity hospitals.
Of these, 970 were to EU nationals; 4,424 were to non-EU mothers, the nationality of 77 could not be discovered.
