McDowell hits back at mounting opposition to citizenship vote
"The only sensible thing is to vote Yes," he insisted. "I haven't heard a good argument from Sister Stan yet as to why it is sensible to vote No.
"And I listened to Bruce Morrison on the radio this morning and I think he was talking about subjects about which he doesn't know very much," said Mr McDowell.
The Progressive Democrats minister said he believed the vast majority of Irish people supported the Government's line.
He described the referendum as a matter of grave and urgent importance.
Asked to comment on the 150 Irish lawyers who had come out publicly against the referendum, the minister said the great majority of lawyers "know that this referendum is sensible and timely and now necessary. And after the Chen case, if we don't do it, we will have a very serious case on our hands in the coming weeks and months".
In the Chen case, the European Court found the Chinese mother and her Belfast-born baby were entitled to live in the EU by virtue of the child's Irish citizenship.
"Anybody who doubted, when they saw the Chen decision, now realised the Government was right to promote the referendum, especially at this time.
"In those circumstances I don't see how postponing the issue could in any way improve the situation.
"I haven't heard one persuasive, even half-persuasive, legal argument as to why it's a mistake to go back to where we were in 1998," Mr McDowell said.
Neither had he heard one cogent argument as to how it would help the situation anywhere in Ireland to leave our law "in the mess" that it was in.
Under the Government's proposal, citizenship would not be granted to a child unless one of its parents had been legally resident on the island of Ireland for three of the four years prior to its birth.
