Referendum: Yes campaign The Minister for Health and Children, Mr Micheál Martin, launched the Government's case for a Yes vote in the citizenship referendum yesterday.
During his presentation in the Imperial Hotel in Cork city, Minister Martin said opponents of the referendum were dealing with everything but the proposal before the people.
He also claimed that much of the debate so far in the campaign has been peppered with distorted fact.
"It is unfortunate that a lot of the debate so far has been dominated by deliberate misrepresentations of the proposal.
"The facts are clear and the need for action is obvious to anyone who is willing to look at them," he said.
The Minister claimed that half of the infants born to non-nationals in the Southern Health Board (SHB) region alone last year were children of asylum-seekers.
He sad that in the SHB area in 2003, there were approximately 1,000 births to non-nationals, and half of those were to asylum-seekers.
The Minister for Health said that late booking or unbooked deliveries were placing pressure on maternity hospitals. Mr Martin added that he had told airlines of his concerns about allowing women in the late stages of pregnancy to fly.
"The Government's proposal for dealing with this problem is balanced and responsible. It simply brings our laws into line with the rest of Europe. Once it is passed, Ireland will still conform to every obligation of human rights and children's rights conventions.
"Indeed, if the referendum is passed, Ireland will still have one of the most liberal citizenship regimes in the EU," he said.
The Minister attacked opponents of the June 11th vote and pleaded with the parties to conduct debate in a restrained and reasonable manner.
"The approach taken by opponents of the referendum is doing a grave disservice to the public. Crass misrepresentations and emotional attacks do not serve the interests of healthy public debate.
"There is a sense that the referendum's opponents are more interested in attacking people than having an informed debate. They have chosen to stereotype and condemn the integrity of everyone who believes that our citizenship laws need reform," he added.
Minister Martin said that it would be "irresponsible" to know that there is a problem and to step back and do nothing.
"The campaign to date has proven that those of us who are advocating change are capable of promoting a Yes vote in a reasoned, rational and responsible way.
"On the other side, we have seen deliberate and irresponsible attempts to escalate emotions and create division.
"The bottom line is this. A Yes vote for a simple, balanced and common sense proposal which addresses a real problem. It will protect the integrity of our citizenship laws and bring them into line with European norms," said Mr Martin.
The Minister was accompanied at the launch by the west Cork TD, Mr Denis O'Donovan, chair of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, who defended the decision to hold the referendum on June 11th.
He said that turnout for a stand alone referendum "would have been as low as 25 per cent".