Citizenship referendum ‘in breach of Agreement’

THE citizenship referendum is in breach of the Good Friday Agreement and will introduce a contradiction into the Constitution, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte has said.

Launching Labour's campaign against the referendum in Galway yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said the referendum which proposes to withdraw the automatic right of citizenship from children born here to non-national parents was an unacceptable attempt to influence June's local elections.

"This is a cynical attempt to run a referendum on a sensitive issue alongside the local and European elections on June 11. Rather than making the case for change, if there is a case, they decided to facilitate anyone who wanted to play the race card in these elections," he said.