Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

To become a citizen of Denmark by virtue of birth, a child must have parents who have resided in the state for ten years. The same requirement is in place in Greece. The average period of parental residency throughout the EU is five years whereas we propose only three. There was a time when birth alone allowed a person to claim British citizenship, but the law in this regard was changed almost 25 years ago in 1981. The last EU state to abandon the notion that birth gives rise to citizenship was Malta, which changed its law 15 years ago in 1989.

The proposed referendum is about protecting the integrity of the notion of Irish citizenship. It is primarily and foremost about the integrity of our citizenship law, whatever the figures may be. That said, it cannot be doubted that the loophole in the law has led to some unfortunate social consequences of which the maternity situation is one. It is a fact that the masters of the maternity hospitals in Dublin approached the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. They told him about the pressures to which their hospitals were being subjected by the increasing number of births to non-nationals. That is a fact.

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