The Tánaiste has made a comprehensive defence of the Government's planned referendum on citizenship, strongly defending both its content and timing as reasonable.
In a statement last night Ms Harney denied that the Government's proposal was racist, and urged "calm and considered debate". She regretted claims that the proposal is designed to encourage racist tendencies, saying she hoped its opponents "do not lower the entire level of democratic debate by simply denigrating the proposal, or those of us in favour of it, as 'racist'."
She said every state had the right and responsibility to make fair and balanced laws for its own citizenship. "We are entitled to bring our constitution and our laws into line with European Union countries on citizenship, so that we do not create unintended incentives that are unfair to us or to other EU member-states."
She said there were sufficient and serious grounds for the proposal to remove the automatic right of citizenship from the Irish-born children of non-nationals. The constitutional provisions on citizenship introduced when the people approved the Good Friday agreement "are being used in a way that was not intended by the people when we voted in 1998".
Irish people would not be true to the Constitution if they allowed citizenship to be acquired, maintained and passed on without requiring even the most minimal connection or loyalty to the State, she said.
Responding to claims that there are no statistics to back up the Government's argument that a large number of foreign "citizenship tourists" are coming to Ireland to have babies here to get them citizenship, she said the scale of the problem was not the issue. The issue was "that our constitutional provisions are being used in a way we did not intend".
She said the Government was "entirely confident" that the proposal does not contradict or undermine the Good Friday agreement.
She said the proposal was not racist. "It cannot possibly be racist to favour more scope for law-making by the Oireachtas on the details of the important issue of citizenship. Since the Government has announced our decision we have heard no reasoned views against the substance of the proposal, but objections to the process and, regrettably, some personal accusations passing off as argument."
She said that June 11th - the same day as the local and European elections - was the most suitable date for the poll, rejecting criticism that this could inject the race issue into those election campaigns.
She also rejected arguments that the proposal was being put to the people without enough time for debate. There were 42 days between the signing of the Belfast Agreement and that referendum, 43 days between the second-stage debate on the divorce referendum and the vote, and 60 days between the second-stage debate and referendum on divorce in 1995.
"Today there are 53 days to polling day on June 11th", she said. "The referendum text and the proposed legislation have already been published. Given that the change we propose - to give greater scope to the Oireachtas to legislate on citizenship - is relatively straightforward, I believe the time for debate on the referendum is reasonable."
Ed Power adds: Fears of dragging the President into the debate on citizenship persuaded the Government not to hold its controversial referendum on the issue at the same time as a presidential election in the autumn, Ms Harney said earlier yesterday.
The Government seriously considered running the citizenship referendum in tandem with a presidential vote but rejected the proposal because of worries of politicising the election, Ms Harney told reporters.
Concerns that presidential candidates might seize on the referendum as a campaign issue convinced the Cabinet the proposal was unworkable, the Tánaiste revealed.
Ministers were apprehensive that the President, who is constitutionally forbidden from expressing political views , would be put in an "improper position" as the citizenship controversy raged around her.
The fact that a presidential election is by no means certain - as no rival candidate has yet declared - further mitigated against the idea, Ms Harney said.
The Cabinet also debated whether to hold a stand-alone referendum later this year. But it was feared this would be prohibitively expensive and would lead to a lower turnout, with the poll dominated by "polarised" voters, to the exclusion of the "middle ground", said Ms Harney.
The Tánaiste added that she could not understand why SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan has come out vehemently against the proposed new laws in the past week, as his party had been briefed on the Government's plans together with the Republic's major opposition parties in early April.