Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It has never been suggested that the parties to the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement at Castle Buildings in Stormont in 1998 set out to deprive the Oireachtas of the right to decide the circumstances in which children born to non-nationals on the island of Ireland would become entitled to Irish citizenship. However, a number of people, including myself, were aware that the wording of Article 2 might cause problems in the future in relation to immigration policy and law. As a legal practitioner who had appeared in the Fajujonu case, it was clear to me that coupled with existing Supreme Court jurisprudence a major issue was emerging as to whether the new constitutional provision would seriously constrain the State from effectively controlling inward migration, especially by reducing the right to deport persons who had given birth to a citizen child in Ireland.

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