Law scraps right of non-nationals' children to automatic citizenship
Justice Minister Michael McDowell said the change had been approved by 80% of the people in the citizenship referendum in June.
"We are proposing a fair and equitable set of arrangements for entitlement to Irish citizenship - arrangements that have the support of Irish society and enable us to acknowledge properly the contribution and commitment to Irish society that longer-term migrants make," he said.
When the Good Friday Agreement was approved in a 1998 referendum, it gave every child born on the island of Ireland the right to Irish citizenship.
But under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill, 2004, published yesterday, a non-national child will only be given citizenship if one of the parents has been lawfully resident in the country for three out of the four years before the birth.
Asylum seekers and students from countries outside the European Economic Area cannot use their time spent in the country to claim citizenship rights for their children.
The requirement to be resident in the country for a period of time will not apply to people from the North and Britain.
Their children will still be granted automatic citizenship.
Mr McDowell said the bill was broadly similar to what the Government had proposed during the citizenship referendum.
He said he would bring forward legislation to provide for non-nationals who wanted to work in the country on a temporary or permanent basis.
The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Bill will also eliminate the loophole which allowed for the controversial "passports for sale" scheme in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Some of those granted Irish citizenship in return for inward investments included Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, and Viktor Kozeny, a Bahamas-based financier who was known as the Pirate of Prague.
Mr McDowell said that he objected to people buying citizenship when they had little connection with the State.
"The investment-based scheme is well and truly dead, and this is the final nail in its coffin," he said.
Meanwhile, more than 300 people, including refugees, their children and politicians yesterday marched on the Dáil demanding an end to deportation.
Protest organisers Residents Against Racism, who were supported by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, said thousands of people were now in limbo and waiting for decisions about their right to stay in Ireland.
"Through no fault of their own, they have been left not knowing what future lies ahead. Thousands of Irish citizen children, who have as much right to live here as anyone, face being kicked out of Ireland," a spokesperson said.
