‘Rushed referendum campaign underrates voters’

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell and his government have underestimated the public by rushing a referendum campaign on citizenship, Sinn Féin claimed yesterday.

The party’s European Parliament candidate in Dublin, Mary Lou McDonald, accused the Government of resorting to scaremongering in the campaign to persuade voters in the referendum on June 11 to deny children born in Ireland to non-nationals the right to Irish citizenship.

“I believe they have vastly underrated people’s ability to be rational and thoughtful,” she said.

“People are concerned that this debate is being rushed. They are deeply concerned about the notion of stopping children born in this country having the right to citizenship. They cannot see why the debate cannot be conducted in a calm and neutral environment instead of in the heat of an election campaign.”

Sinn Féin national chairman Mitchell McLaughlin also rebuked the Government for bringing forward the proposal to deny citizenship, claiming it would undermine the Good Friday Agreement, which guarantees the right of people in Northern Ireland to qualify as Irish citizens.

At the launch of his party’s campaign for a No vote in the referendum, the Foyle Assembly member said the Justice Minister had given unionists ammunition to argue that the Good Friday Agreement could be radically altered.

Campaigners for a No vote have been buoyed by an opinion poll which suggested the result could be tight. According to the survey carried out for the Irish Examiner and RTÉ, 44% of people polled in Munster supported the Government proposal, but 41% were against it.

Crucially, 15% of those surveyed remained undecided. The Government had claimed that a European Court ruling this week that a Chinese mother of a child born in Belfast should be allowed to live in Britain underscored the need for the change to the citizenship laws.

Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan said this week the court ruling in the case of Man Levette Chen indicated that people were using Ireland’s citizenship laws to enable them to get a back door entry into other European Union countries.

Ms Coughlan said more pregnant women would travel to Ireland to give birth to gain citizenship in the EU unless the referendum proposal was accepted.

Sinn Féin local government election candidate in Dublin, Daithí Doolan, claimed the Government had constantly shifted its position on why there should be a referendum.

With Fianna Fáil preparing to launch its campaign for a Yes vote tomorrow, Government chief whip Mary Hanafin accused Sinn Féin and the Green Party of downplaying the significance of this week’s Man Levette Chen ruling.

“Trying to confuse the people about this straightforward and positive proposal, opposition groups are grasping at straws in a fumbling attempt to distract attention from the decisive and clear advice given to the highest court in Europe,” said Ms Hanafin.