The targets in the citizenship referendum on Friday are not citizenship tourists, abusers of our "liberal" citizenship laws, or opportunist immigrants falsely claiming refugee status here to avail of our "generous" social provisions. They (the "abusers" of the system ) gain nothing and will lose nothing as a consequence of how we vote on Friday, writes Vincent Browne.
The sole targets are the innocent babies who will be born here among us. The purpose of the referendum is to deprive these babies - and no one else - of the right to Irish citizenship, to deny these infants whatever protection and solace we may be able to afford them some time in their lives. It is they, alone, who will be affected by how we vote, not opportunist parents or others.
Our Supreme Court has ordained that parents gain no entitlement by virtue of their Irish citizen child. The Irish citizen baby does not have even the right to remain in Ireland, according to some of the judges of the Supreme Court. It and its parents have no right of residence in the European Union, unless they have the means whereby they will be no burden on the host state - this effectively excludes all the immigrant families we and our European partners are concerned about (i.e., Africans and indigent East Europeans).
It might be asked, what then, if there is no right of residence here and no right of residence in the European Union, what difference does it make to these children if they are deprived of Irish citizenship? There are two responses.
At some future time, the availability of Irish citizenship to such a person might well be of solace and protection. The vast majority of such citizens are likely to be thrust on the torrid ocean of poverty, violence, insecurity and displacement. Would we not wish for such a person, born among us, however contrived that was, to have our protection, whatever that might turn out to be? Would we not want to acknowledge some bond to an infant born here, even if our Supreme Court ordains their parents and themselves have no right to remain here?
There is another dimension to the vote on Friday. If then we vote Yes, as the opinion polls suggest we will do so by a massive majority, we will be defining our society in a way that, I believe, most of us would regret. Were it the case that there was a real substantive issue at stake here seriously affecting our national interest, then there might be a case for change. The reality is, however, that there is no such substantive issue.
The number of asylum-seekers has declined markedly since the Supreme Court decision of January of last year that denied a right of residence to the parents of Irish baby citizens. The claims about recently arrived pregnant immigrant women flooding our maternity wards have seemed increasingly threadbare as the campaign has gone on. In any event a change to our Constitution would be a disproportionate response to any such "crisis", for a number of reasons: (i) the "flood" of such women coming here could be abated by tighter enforcement by airline companies of regulations concerning the carriage of heavily pregnant women (that would not stop such women coming here but it would reduce it); (ii) it is not believable that the so-called "pull factor" will persist once it becomes generally appreciated that a citizenship entitlement on the part of an infant carries no entitlements at all to residence here or in the European Union, unless the parents are very wealthy; and (iii) what would be so bad about us funding the birth of children whose parents are so desperate as to resort to such desperate means to advantage their child, as they see it?
Yes we are the only country in the European Union that at present offers citizenship rights to people on the ground that they were born here, but so what? We are also the only country that obtained for itself a protocol to the Maastricht Treaty that ensures that our abortion laws are not affected by European Union law. We secured that opt-out because of our declared concern for vulnerable life - the life of the unborn. If we were genuine about that, why not extend that concern to the vulnerable lives of children born here by offering the modest advantage of Irish citizenship?
Do we really want to define ourselves as a people whose self-preoccupation is such that we deny a modest prospective comfort to vulnerable children born among us, at no cost or little cost to ourselves?
There is no genuine argument for changing the Constitution. The initiative is an electoral stunt got up in the first instance by Michael McDowell probably in a ruse to embarrass Sinn Féin - a ruse that, in that respect, has failed. It is the cynical playing of the racist card for electoral advantage, and that is another reason to vote No.
Those who feel strongly on this issue should carry through their revulsion over this racist caper by putting the Progressive Democrats at the bottom of the local elections list of candidates and remembering to do so forever more. It is a wrong for which there should be no political forgiveness. Ever!