Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

My birthright gives me citizenship of America. That same birthright gives me rights by heritage to Irish citizenship because my parents were among the thousands of people who left this country in the 1950s when their rights as Irish citizens to earn a livelihood and bring up a family were far from honoured by this State. If the Minister wants a debate on citizenship, it should be on those lines. Then we will be a better-informed society. The reality is that the Government does not want to change the Constitution to bring about the right of the Oireachtas to decide citizenship. This is because the traditional role of the Oireachtas has always been to honour the right of those born in this country to Irish citizenship, which has been its role in regard to all legislation passed since the foundation of the State, through the 1935 Citizenship Act, the 1956 Act and the 2001 Act which implemented the Good Friday Agreement and the relevant constitutional change.

The Government does not want to bring about a right of the Oireachtas to define citizenship. It wants its own means to define citizenship in its own narrow way. Members on this side of the House will not stand aside and allow the Government to do this for the cynical reasons it has chosen.

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