Denis Naughten (Longford-Roscommon, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The phrase "I am not a racist but..." is what I and everyone else in this House hear in our clinics and in our constituencies. By means of the amendment before us, the Government will fuel this attitude in the run-up to and during the local election campaign right up to polling day. That is the sad aspect of this issue. If the Government came to this House with a genuine proposal, we would wholeheartedly welcome it and would work with the Government to address the matter, but it is purely for electoral purposes that this legislation is being brought forward. It will fuel the bigotry of the people who say "I am not a racist but...".

There is a great deal of public confusion. Anyone with a skin pigment different from our own is automatically assumed to be an asylum seeker. When the issue arises on people's doorsteps, I spend a great deal of time explaining that there is an array of different individuals in this country, not all of whom are asylum seekers. Everyone would agree that Paul McGrath is Irish. There are non-nationals in this country married to Irish people. There are EU nationals in this country who have a right to be here, just as Irish citizens have the right to go to any other part of the European Union. There are migrants in Ireland with work permits. For example, 12.5% of the population of the town of Roscommon is made up of Brazilians, whose first language is Portuguese. There are Bosnian refugees in Ireland. Before them there were Vietnamese refugees who came to this country 20 or 30 years ago and comprise a very small percentage of the population. We then have two types of asylum seekers. Some come to Ireland because of genuine threats to their lives. Others are economic migrants seeking asylum, who hope to have their applications approved so that they can live and work in this country just as the Irish did in many parts of the world.

It should be acknowledged that there is a significant number of people among the latter group who are well educated and cannot work in this country. Will the Minister explain why they cannot do so? We have doctors, engineers and every type of specialist in centres across the country who, legally, are not allowed to work. Much of the bigotry could be addressed if those people had the right to work. There are even people in Ireland who are married to Irish nationals but do not have the right to work; they have to apply for work permits. Employers are not very eager to go through the work permit system.

Fine Gael acknowledges that Article 2 of the Constitution, as inserted following the Good Friday Agreement, creates the potential for abuse of Irish citizenship. As my party leader stated earlier, Fine Gael shares the objective of closing off that potential abuse and it is committed at all times to working constructively with the Government and all other parties to finding the best solution to that problem. However, shoving something through at the last minute is not the best way to do that. I listened to my Dáil colleague Deputy Ardagh and I thought I was listening to "Bull Island". He spoke about the privilege of Irish citizenship and the fact that some people have no allegiance or connection to the State. I presume many of the Fianna Fáil members that are here today are speaking with a "tongue in cheek" approach, in light of all the passports divvied out over the years by Fianna Fáil-led governments. Some of them have brought economic benefits to the Minister's county as he well knows. The reality is that all of a sudden we have this huge respect for Irish citizenship which was not there in the 1980s or 1990s. It seems hypocritical that Members in this House talk about the privilege of Irish citizenship.

No one from the Government has given an answer on this problem. Why do we not have any details on the numbers of people coming here, or the number of people that will be affected by this legislation? Why has no research been carried out? This Government has brought in consultant after consultant over the past seven years. There have been enough reports from experts in every area to fill this Chamber. Whenever the Government has been in difficulty, it immediately calls in the experts to produce reports. Why not produce a report on this issue? The Government gave a commitment in the programme for government that it would look at the issue. Why did it not do so over the intervening two years? Is this is a real problem, or a potential problem? No one seems to be able to answer that today. Deputy Ardagh alleged that people were being advised in the UK to come to Ireland to obtain citizenship of the EU. That is incorrect. It was the case a few years ago that people were coming here from the UK to have children, but that is not currently happening. This is because people are now able to get direct flights to Dublin so they do not need to stop over in the UK first. There is no research into the extent of the problem.

What happens if this constitutional amendment does not address the problem? We will still have the same number of people coming in, whatever number that is. What do we do then? If citizenship is not the reason people are coming, then what happens? I do not believe the sole reason for someone who flies in from Lagos to have a child here is that the child can have Irish citizenship in 18 years' time. No one has yet provided the information to contradict me.

Why has this amendment not been referred to the Oireachtas committee on the Constitution? There have been suggestions that there are other options. Deputy Jim O'Keeffe will propose a number of other options that should be considered and that could resolve the issue. If his solution does not address the problem, it is flexible so that we can come back and review it. We do not have that flexibility in a constitutional amendment. Why are these suggestions not being considered? Why are we not getting the opportunity to consider them at an all-party committee on the Constitution? Why will we not have the legislation prior to the referendum? The people are being asked to trust the Government that promised 2,000 extra gardaí two years ago, none of whom we have seen. We are being asked to trust the Government that promised the abolition of waiting lists in our hospitals by April 2004, which has not happened. Does anyone seriously believe we can trust this Government? I would not trust it as far as I could throw it, and this is not too far.

What guarantees do we have that we do not end up in the same situation as we were in the 1980s on abortion? The referendum that was passed provided for the one thing that it was supposed to prohibit. We could end up in a similar legal quagmire. Therefore, why can we not let a committee look at it? The Tánaiste spoke about the consultation that took place with the parties on this side of the House. We know that no consultation has taken place and that the Minister has buried his head in the sand. Consultation for five minutes over the coffee table is the sum total of the consultation that took place.

See this speech in context