Constitutional referendum: backgroundMichael McDowell has shifted his ground on why a citizenship referendum is needed, reports Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
Last month the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, based his argument for the holding of a referendum on the assertion that there was a growing crisis in our maternity hospitals, particularly in Dublin.
Yesterday he said this was a side issue. The real driving force behind the referendum, he said, was "the integrity of the Irish citizenship law". He added later: "This is not an issue about maternity hospitals."
Last month he and his Department painted a picture of pregnant "citizenship tourists" placing great strain on the State's maternity services. He said the Masters of Dublin's maternity hospitals had come to him to express grave concern, and had pleaded with him to change the law.
The Masters of the maternity hospitals have since challenged Mr McDowell's version, saying they neither sought a meeting, not did they plead for a change in the law.
This week the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, insisted that they had indeed sought the meeting.
Mr McDowell said yesterday that while he may not have been correct to say they had "pleaded" for a change in the law, they had outlined the implications of this new phenomenon of citizenship tourism for their services, and had warned of "possible medical catastrophes". In such circumstances, he had to act.
Last month, Mr McDowell pointed out that 25 per cent of births in Dublin's maternity hospitals were now to non-national mothers.
A briefing document published that day by his Department based the case for a referendum solely on the thesis that there is a growing problem of non-national births in Ireland.
The document outlined an alarming scenario. There was a new phenomenon of women in late pregnancy arriving in Ireland with the sole purpose of giving birth, thus entitling their child to citizenship.
It reported that 60 per cent of female asylum-seekers aged over 16 are pregnant at time of application; that the Supreme Court judgment on the residency rights of non-national parents of Irish-born children had not reduced these numbers; that "very large numbers" of non-Europeans were now coming here to give birth, that there was growing concern among healthcare professionals and a strain on maternity hospitals.
Yesterday, however, Mr McDowell made it clear that his argument for the holding of a referendum was not based primarily on these matters.
Asked was he now basing the case on an imperative to have coherent citizenship laws, rather than on a substantial immediate problem of "passport tourism" he said: "It's a combination of both. But I'm not pinning my hat on the issue of statistics from maternity hospitals.
"Citizenship is important. It is not something which is just given out as a little token, or a useful thing to people with no connection with our State. It imposes on people who are Irish citizens duties of loyalty and fidelity to the nation-state."
He agreed that while 25 per cent of births in Dublin's maternity hospitals were to non-nationals, some of these were to citizens of other EU states and people here on work permits. One third were to people in the asylum process. The precise breakdown - which would give evidence of the extent of the "citizenship tourism" phenomenon - is not available.
He said the figures for non-national births in maternity hospitals were a symptom rather than the root cause of the problem. "The real issue is do we have a law in Ireland, alone of the EU member-states, which confers citizenship from birth and, by definition, under the European treaties citizenship of the European Union on anybody born in the island of Ireland no matter how casual or tenuous the connection of their parents with the Irish State."
Mr McDowell rejected Opposition claims that the decision to hold this referendum on the same day as the local and European Parliament elections is to damage parties that might oppose it.
All parties report that many voters believe there are indeed major problems in Ireland being caused by foreigners - such as those stated to exist in maternity hospitals by the Department of Justice last month.
"The reason for holding this referendum is not related to electoral prospects," Mr McDowell asserted.
Holding it in conjunction with a presidential election could tempt candidates to take positions on the issue and he did not see this as appropriate. Holding a referendum on its own in a campaign where no other issue was being discussed could also inflame racist views, he said.