Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I wish to share my time with Deputy Olivia Mitchell.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. It is a pity we are not sitting today in a regular manner with the Order of Business, Question Time and Adjournment debate. I do not accept that we cannot receive answers to at least written questions from Ministers when the House is sitting. I have no difficulty with the concept of discussing this issue but I have a difficulty with the method by which we have come to debate this and with the railroading of this issue through to a referendum.

Amending the Constitution is a very significant and serious step. It is not one to be taken lightly and should not be taken without a clear need to do so being shown. Up to now the Government has failed to show that need, yet it thinks it is in order to proceed with these changes. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Government have to a large extent hailed the phenomenon of the rise in non-national women having babies in Ireland as the reason for this referendum. It seemed that the potential crisis in waiting in our maternity hospitals is the main reason behind this proposed referendum. If so it is the quickest reaction to a problem facing the health service that I have ever seen.

Being the only EU country that operates in this way, granting citizenship based on birth, is at least a more significant and probably more honest reason for the referendum, but it is a great pity this perspective could not have been articulated from the beginning. It is also a pity and a shame that the masters of the Dublin maternity hospitals had to be dragged into this issue in a manner which they clearly never intended.

The method and manner in which the Government has approached this referendum has been cynical to say the least and is clearly based on trying desperately to seek advantage in the June elections. Fine Gael has always stated that we need to seek a resolution to the issues and we want to contribute to finding that resolution. However, the Government has made no attempt to facilitate that or to facilitate discussion on the issue. The fact that the Government has yet to answer Deputy Gay Mitchell's various Dáil questions clearly shows its hypocrisy when saying it wants this issue to be non-political. The fact that the Government responded to Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's questions at the 11th hour leads me to the same conclusion. There is little point in even raising these matters but they need to be raised. The way Dáil questions are being treated by several Ministers shows little regard for democracy or for the House. I am still waiting for responses to questions I put down for the Minister for Education and Science some weeks ago on curriculum support units and inservice training for teachers. One would imagine this type of basic information would be readily available in any well organised and ordered Department, but clearly this is not so. This is unacceptable in every case but when the issue being considered is held up as the basis for holding a referendum to change our Constitution, and we cannot get basic information, then it is a disgrace.

There are only two possible conclusions we can draw from this. First, the information is not available. If that is the case, what has the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform been talking about? If it is available why has he not complied with his duty to this House and released it in response to Deputy Mitchell's question?

I accept that information on this matter was given last night to Fine Gael in two tranches. I am interested to know whether this information was made available to the Minister before or after he made his various pronouncements. There has been no real, meaningful consultation on this issue. Deputy Haughey said he does not want endless consultation, and I agree with him, but there should at least be some proper consultation. It is quite clear the Minister is making this up as he goes along. In March, he based much if not all of his reasoning for this referendum on the situation in the maternity hospitals. On 8 April, he said the real issue was "the integrity of Irish citizenship laws". One can only wonder what May will bring. The briefing document of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, published in March, also relied solely on the first reason.

It also appears quite clear that there has been no meaningful discussion with the parties in Northern Ireland on this issue either. We cannot just wave away any possible consequences for the Good Friday Agreement as easily as the Government is attempting to do. While it is clear that the amendment is to Article 9 of the Constitution, what is less clear is the possible effect this will have on Article 2 as agreed by the people of Ireland in the 19th amendment to the Constitution, almost six years to the date from that which the Minister is proposing. Given that they agreed "It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish nation," I find it hard to believe that no one foresaw this problem, which the Government, all of a sudden, deems to be potentially catastrophic. Did the Government have no advice on this issue at the time? That is a legitimate question it must answer.

All parties in the North have raised questions and fears, which must be properly responded to and debated. A joint declaration, now called an interpretative declaration, involving the Prime Minister is just that. That the British Prime Minister and the Taoiseach both say it is so does not make it so, and they must prove it is so. The exclusion in Annex 2 of the Agreement is not in the Constitution or in Irish law. We are being asked to accept a great deal on the good faith of promised legislation.

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