Government in danger of losing citizenship vote

THE citizenship referendum is likely to be a far tighter contest than previously anticipated, the latest opinion poll findings reveal.

According to an Irish Examiner/Prime Time poll, conducted by Lansdowne Market Research, the Government is in danger of losing the poll altogether and remains just a few percentage points ahead of the no side.

The poll, carried out in the European election South constituency, found just 44% of voters were in favour of denying automatic citizenship to children of non-national parents as proposed by the Government's constitutional amendment.

However, a surprising 41% of those polled said they would not like to see citizenship rights withdrawn from children born to non-national parents in Ireland.

With a further 15% of voters as yet undecided, the referendum now appears to be a wide open contest.

According to the survey, carried out this Tuesday and Wednesday, younger people tended to be more opposed to the referendum with those aged 65 and older in favour of the amendment.

The remaining three European constituencies will also be surveyed in the coming week.

The Government's proposed referendum, if passed, would require non-national parents of children born in Ireland to be resident here for three of the previous four years in order for the child to be given Irish citizenship.

However, as the poll was carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week it remains unclear what impact this week's preliminary European ruling in the Chen case had on those surveyed.

The Chen ruling was immediately grasped by the Government as further justification for its referendum amid increasing concerns over the timing of the vote together with June's local and European elections.

The Government has not formally launched its yes campaign yet and will not do so until next week. But the no campaign, although disjointed and not centrally co-ordinated, has already built up a considerable head of steam.

This week saw well-publicised campaign launches by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, supported by former US Congressman Bruce Morrison, and Lawyers Against the Amendment, headed up by Trinity Law Professor William Binchy.

The Labour Party, the Green Party and Sinn Féin, as well as several independents, are also against the referendum while Fine Gael is in favour of the poll but concerned at the timing.