Madam, - Amid all the hype and scaremongering from the supporters of Michael McDowell's unnecessary constitutional proposal on citizenship, could we keep some sense of proportion about the scale of the supposed problem? Census 2002 gives some of the facts rather than the myths about children, birthplace, and nationality.
For example, 98 per cent of children under 15 are Irish nationals. Over half of the remainder are EU citizens, predominantly British. Moreover, 92 per cent of children under 15 living in Ireland were born here. Two-thirds of the remainder come from EU-15 countries (mainly Britain). Ten per cent of non-Irish-born children are from the US, 6 per cent from Eastern Europe, 7 per cent from Africa, and 5 per cent from Asia.
The figures above are in stark contrast to the absence of statistics from the Minister for Justice to justify his claims of "citizenship tourism". In fact, he has shifted the goalposts so often in arguing for this referendum - from the masters of the maternity hospitals originally, to the preliminary Chen judgment this week - that it seems he has nothing other than whatever springs to his mind at a particular moment to justify it. - Yours, etc.,
REBECCA MOYNIHAN, Chairperson, Labour Youth, Ely Place, Dublin 2.