Citizen referendum war of words heats up

THE ratcheting-up of the debate on the citizenship referendum continued apace yesterday with a flurry of attacks and counter-attacks on each other’s position by the Government and opposition parties.

Green Party TD Dan Boyle told a rally in Cork last night that the Government wanted to go further than simply restoring the situation that existed prior to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

He said that before the Agreement, those born in Ireland had always been entitled to citizenship, irrespective of the nationality of their parents. He said that the Government now wanted to severely restrict that right by introducing a "rogue's charter."

Joe Costello of the Labour Party said that the latest observations from the Human Rights Commission had raised the questions on whom could be trusted on this issue the Commission or the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell?

"The Commission is just the latest in a long list of responsible independent organisations that have come out against the proposal.

"These are organisations that have no axe to grind yet their concerns have been contemptuously dismissed by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell," Mr Costello said.

Meanwhile, Mr McDowell himself issued a detailed rebuttal of what he claimed were "false statements" made by Labour's Michael D Higgins on Morning Ireland earlier this week.

Accusing the Labour TD of a catalogue of errors, Mr McDowell said that Mr Higgins's assertion that a Nigerian child born in Dublin would not be a Nigerian citizen was factually wrong.

He added that Mr Higgins was also incorrect in saying that children born to second or third generation Turks in Germany were neither Turkish nor German citizens.

Mr McDowell referred to the constitutions of Turkey and Germany, saying that both conferred the rights of citizenship on children born to citizens of those countries. The minister also stated that in Germany, there existed a way for the German-born children of Turkish citizens to acquire German citizenship.

"Public debate is seriously devalued if it is based on repeated ignorance, arm-chancing and repeated factual inaccuracy," he said.

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern also dismissed claims the new law would create "stateless children" as totally untrue.