Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Such irony. The Government had no statistical basis for its claim of a crisis number of births and a widespread abuse of citizenship law. It has yet to produce the evidence. Even if it is accepted that there is such a problem, it is wrong to assert that it can only be rectified by a referendum which will fundamentally alter our citizenship laws and our Constitution.

I charge the Government with deliberate deception of the Oireachtas and of the people. On 17 February last I asked the Taoiseach on the floor of the Dáil if it was intended to hold a referendum or referenda in 2004 to change the Constitution. I want to remind the Dáil of exactly what the Taoiseach said, namely:

The Government has no proposals at present to hold a referendum to change the Constitution. The position continues to be held under review in light of developments, including: the outcome of the examination by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution of property rights issues; the outcome of the study being conducted by a sub-committee on procedures and privileges on reform of the Seanad; and the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference on the draft constitutional treaty which commenced in Rome on 4 October.

The Taoiseach's answer could not have been clearer. No proposals to hold a referendum and no mention of citizenship or the Good Friday Agreement. He also told the Dáil that "The complexities involved in holding a referendum require that careful consideration be given to the frequency with which referenda can realistically be held and the significance of the issues in question."

Today, however, the Taoiseach and his representatives are asking the Oireachtas and the people to endorse a complex referendum proposal with profound consequences for citizenship rights and the Good Friday Agreement and without referral to the All-Party Committee on the Constitution. There has been no prior consultation with the political parties North or South, no engagement with civil society, no research, no evidence, no White Paper, no Green Paper and no real debate. That is the reality.

Did the Taoiseach tell the Dáil the truth on 17 February 2004? We now know that on 14 January 2004, the franchise section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, on instructions from the Minister, Deputy Cullen, wrote to the Department of Finance informing it that 300 further electronic voting machines had been ordered because "there are strong indications that there may be a further ballot paper at the June polls. This would increase time of voters at voting machines." What did the Minister know that we did not know on 14 January? Did the Taoiseach know it?

Even if this letter had not come to light under the Freedom of Information Act, thanks to Irish Citizens for Trustworthy E-voting, there would still be a huge question for the Taoiseach to answer, which quite simply is this. Does he expect us to believe that on 17 February — only nine weeks ago — he was not aware that this constitutional amendment and its associated complex legislation were in preparation and that, at the very least, there was a possibility that they would be put to a referendum this year? If he knew that, then he clearly misled the Dáil on 17 February. Those are the facts.

I will turn now to the implications of this constitutional amendment for the Good Friday Agreement. By the very manner the Government has proceeded so far, and before the proposal is even put to a vote, it has damaged and undermined the Agreement.

The Government undertook no prior consultation with the parties that negotiated the Agreement, including Sinn Féin which is the largest pro-Agreement party in the Six Counties. Like Sinn Féin the SDLP has expressed its opposition to this referendum proposal. Thus we have the two parties representing virtually all Nationalists in the Six Counties speaking out against the Government's proposed course of action.

Citizenship by birthright was enshrined in the amended Article 2 of the 1937 Constitution to guarantee the right to Irish citizenship of people born in the Six Counties. Yet, the Government is ignoring the political representatives of those in the Six Counties who value their Irish citizenship. Not for the first time, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell has handed Dr. Ian Paisley and the Democratic Unionist Party a priceless political gift. They were told solemnly by both Governments that the Agreement would not be re-negotiated but now the DUP asserts almost daily that the Agreement can be changed at the whim of the Governments acting either together or unilaterally.

While all the political parties in Ireland and the Irish people were kept in the dark the Government entered secret consultations with the British Government. The result of those consultations was the scrap of paper issued on Monday, 19 April, as a Joint Declaration by the British and Irish Governments. Once again we are expected to accept it like tablets of stone carrying the definitive legal interpretation of this amendment.

On behalf of Sinn Féin, let me state we do not accept it. It is not a legal interpretation; it is a political fig-leaf. The full legal and constitutional implications for the Good Friday Agreement are only now being explored in the two legal jurisdictions North and South. This affects both the Constitution and the Good Friday Agreement and it is an insult to expect us to swallow whole the so-called legal interpretation contained in the Government's Joint Declaration. When the people voted for the Good Friday Agreement in this jurisdiction, they did it by way of endorsement of constitutional change. The amended Article 2 enshrined the right to citizenship by birth. That is how it has been interpreted by the courts, reaffirmed as recently as the Supreme Court decision of January 2003. The two Governments' Joint Declaration of 19 April purports to reinterpret Article 2, as endorsed by the people and as contained in the Good Friday Agreement. People in the Six Counties will have no input into how the citizenship which they enjoy is determined by law for others in the future, if this constitutional amendment is passed. The British and Irish Governments are un-picking and undermining the Good Friday Agreement. Coming on top of the British Government's repeated assaults on the integrity of the Agreement, this is totally unacceptable and an indictment of the Irish Government's current handling of the peace process overall.

This is no surprise as the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who is presenting the Bill, opposed the peace process at its inception and was a late convert, and has repeatedly shown his disregard for the basic principles underlying the Agreement, real inclusivity and respect for the democratic mandate and right of all elected voices.

This Bill should go no further and if it is passed by the Oireachtas, I urge the people to reject it at the polls. They have a priceless instrument enshrined in the Constitution and no Government should be entrusted with determining who is entitled to citizenship on the island of Ireland. It is the people who should remain sovereign.

See this speech in context