Immigrant citizenship is new national question
Apart from the unnecessary strain in terms of congestion and cost that this places on the system, it is high time that our legislators addressed the phenomenon caused by their lame wording on citizenship incorporated in the Good Friday agreement.
Irish citizenship is not so trite a gift as to be available to anyone who can transport themselves (quite easily, it seems) into this state where they can have instant Irish (and European) citizenship conferred on their offspring.
No other country has meandered into so reckless a social experiment through woolly-headed lawmaking and enforcement. Two issues need to be faced.
Merely trying to enforce deportations of parents with no right of residency is ineffective, and thwarted by border-hopping parents and the usual cabal of local ‘support groups’.
Secondly, having a large foreign population of Irish ‘citizens’ with a right of return at the age 18 is another unknown demographic shift to be awaited from 2015 onwards. We used to talk about the ‘national question’ apropos Northern Ireland. That term has largely lost its meaning. The national question now is whether we wish to maintain a distinctive Irish identity or allow the inheritance of generations to be submerged in a latter-day plantation.
Ted Neville,
Turnberry,
Carrigaline Road,
Douglas,
Co Cork.
