Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The wonderful thing about democracy is that Governments do not always get their own way. Arrogant Governments, like the one we have, are more prone than others to getting their comeuppance when they cross the delicate line between public interest and party gain. Ministers from both parties thought this referendum idea was a master stroke. Today, the whole idea must seem, even to them, rather more threadbare as a sceptical public and media pile doubt upon doubt both as to motive, timing and content of what is proposed.

No less a victim of an earlier genius stroke than former judge Hugh O'Flaherty has denounced this proposal as a gross interference with a treasured definition of citizenship that has its roots in the 1956 Nationality Act. He has written about the matter at some length, if the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, wants to read his detailed article. Surely the lesson of another notorious, ill-fated attempt to solve a delicate social problem with a constitutional weapon must give Ministers pause for thought.

If ever the idea of an unintended consequence has relevance, it is surely the 1983 so-called pro-life amendment which perversely led to the X case judgment a decade later. I can recall the same arrogant certainty on full display then as we now hear that this is necessary, that the legal formula is watertight and that it will solve the underlying problem. How wrong they were then.

Who can foretell what unintended consequences will similarly flow from this current rush to meddle with our nationality laws and the constitutional clause that underpins them? I do not buy the argument about unintended consequences of the Good Friday Agreement. There is a definite distinction between unintended and unforeseen consequences.

The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste cannot even begin to assert that they were not aware that the citizenship clause in that Agreement might give rise to the problems we now face. In 1998 we were fully aware of a refugee flow into Ireland. It was the topic of many dire warnings in the tabloid media, and a regular topic of the speeches of the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, and he was in Belfast for the talks. I cannot believe that neither he nor the Taoiseach approached this part of the Agreement with eyes wide shut as to the possible consequences. They chose the right option, that a liberal birthright clause was the best possible guarantee to do the business of offering citizenship to everyone from all traditions in the North without any ambiguity. It was a risk. They knew this but it was a fair risk in view of the prize of peace it might bring and has brought. It was the right thing to do then and is the right thing to keep now.

I recall that in the May referendum of 1998 to sanction the Good Friday Agreement the independent Referendum Commission had the task of setting out the case for and against the Agreement. I got from it a copy of the document sent to every house in the country at a cost of several million pounds which sets out the arguments against the Agreement. The Minister cannot say, therefore, as he suggested yesterday——

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