Ms Emma DeSouza:

One is right to highlight that part under the entirely deliberate absence of the birthright provisions from the Northern Ireland Act. For me, that argument being made by the Home Office and the British Government signifies an almost rewriting of that provision. There is no evidence to support that submission either. There are no statements from 1998. There is no evidence supporting the current view that it was deliberate, that this was to be left out in 1998. If anything, we have seen people like Jonathan Powell state that this has been overlooked and it is a mistake that it has not made it into legislation.

First, it is quite concerning that it is taking that path. It is a minimising of the right. It is watering it down from a right to choose ones nationality and hold Irish or British citizenship, or both, to a right to feel Irish or British, or both, and I do not think this is what was intended in 1998.

With regard to British citizens in the event of a unification, there is a real issue here because only Britain can decide who is or is not a British citizen, and if the Home Office is successful in watering down the birthright provisions to a right to just feel Irish or British, or both - that we do not have citizenship stemming through that - then it raises the question of what would happen to British citizens in the event of a united Ireland, and what could Ireland do because it cannot grant British citizenship to British citizens. One has a situation where potentially in one to two generations British citizenship could become at risk for those in Northern Ireland who want to hold it.

A point I would like to highlight is that this situation that I am in does not just affect people who only identify as Irish. I have met many families who are unionist and who have renounced British citizenship in order to access their rights, and that is very difficult for them to do because they are having to give up their identity in order to access rights. There are plenty of people in the North who are very happy and content to hold British and Irish citizenship, and they are in a situation where they have to choose one or the other to access their rights, and it basically puts everyone in a very difficult position where their identity is being questioned by the Government. It is not a good place to be.