Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I welcome the suggestion that we should have a mature debate and that we should deal straightforwardly with the public about the issues at stake here. I begin by correcting the latest I have heard, with respect, from the Minister for Defence, Deputy Smith, the suggestion that we are putting ourselves in line with the European Union in terms of arrangements. We are not being asked by the European Union to make this change. We had five referendums about our entry and relationship with Europe and in none of them did the question arise. I repeat straightforwardly that we have not been asked, we are not asked now, nor is there any proposal to ask us to harmonise our laws with Europe.

On the other hand we are changing the Constitution in a fundamental respect. We are taking ourselves out of the procedures to the allocation of citizenship that are associated with the common law tradition. Under the common law tradition, 41 countries have the same procedure we have for the allocation of citizenship. The old legal principle is, "Born on the rock, a citizen of the rock". One is a citizen of the place where one is born. The suggestion that we are somehow unique is simply untrue.

Over 40 countries have the same arrangements as us, including many which had old relationships with Britain. They are not meaningless countries, as I heard someone — not the Minister for Defence — describe them. They are countries like India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Brazil which have very substantial populations. Countries with the same arrangements as ours have on occasion debated the significance of those arrangements. Canada, for example, had an extensive debate on the arrangement whereby a person acquired citizenship on the basis of birth and it concluded after that debate that it would keep that arrangement. The US has debated that arrangement on occasion and it has decided to keep the arrangement. In 1984, Mrs. Thatcher had a debate on the procedure in England and decided to depart from it, as did Australia later. New Zealand decided to retain the procedure. I hope I have now clarified two points of misinformation, namely, that this is required by Europe, when it is not, and that we are somehow unique in our arrangements, which we share only with the US. We are not.

We are, therefore, changing the Constitution on a fundamental principle of law. We are not harmonising ourselves with Europe on taxation policy, neutrality or a raft of other issues, and those being asked to vote may reasonably ask how this argument started. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform suggested that an urgent problem has arisen — a problem so urgent that it cannot wait for the normal sessions of the Dáil, for referral to the All-Party Committee on the Constitution or for a full debate in the House. It could not possibly wait for a White or Green Paper either. Those being asked to vote may therefore reasonably ask questions about the nature of the problem, because it seems to be changing.

I was described yesterday as a slow learner in a lecture from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, so I decided to put in my work on the annexe to his speech and I found some fascinating statistical usages in it. At one stage he referred to 58% of asylum seekers who are pregnant, but if one looks at the annexe one sees that that 58% refers to females over 16. I presume that even in the Minister's world people of 17 who come in are not having babies. It is easy to move from one use of statistics to another. Sometimes the Minister is speaking about non-national births and sometimes he is not speaking about immigrants. He moves along like that.

Let me make the point plain. The problem was not described and the fact that it was not described is outrageous in any event. However, it is particularly outrageous when it is suggested that the only way to deal with the alleged problem is through a fundamental change in the Constitution.

I am trying to respond reasonably to the speeches made yesterday and today. The British and Irish Governments have issued an interpretation of the implications of what is proposed for the Good Friday Agreement. As someone who served in the law courts for a long time, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform should know the Good Friday Agreement is not a matter for politics any more. It is a matter for law. It is an international treaty and lodged as such. The circumstances in which it should be amended can be debated and that is in the realm of politics. However, an interpretative statement by political heads which happens, en passant, to exclude the parties directly involved in Northern Ireland is absurd. It is a matter of law. We must reflect that 90% of the people — reflecting their very best instincts — voted for peace North and South. They asked whether this problem could not be quantified.

It is a problem that keeps changing description. Sometimes it is in the minds of the masters of the maternity hospitals. Sometimes, as the Minister stated in his speech yesterday, he is aware of something anecdotally. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform obviously does not lack the confidence to propose an amendment to the Constitution on the basis of anecdotes. That has led him to create some new offensive concepts, such as citizenship tourism. If it is the case that people are arriving here for such a purpose, the Minister should show us the facts. Let us debate the matter properly, ascertain the people's views and then make proposals.

I have been a Member of the House for a long time but I am not a lawyer. One must legislate for matters that can be legislated for, but constitutional amendments are suggested when one comes up against an obstacle. I will cite a pertinent example that would have been particularly relevant to Deputy O'Connor had he remained in the Chamber. The Labour Party's proposal to deal with speculation in building land, which is the major factor excluding young couples from the possibility of owning their own homes, argued that one did not need to change the Constitution to implement the Kenny report's formula. The Government parties voted us down more than once on the basis that there was a constitutional difficulty. If that were the case, why are they not going to the public with a proposal to deal with building land by way of constitutional amendment? That problem has been quantified for them and the All-Party Committee on the Constitution has commented on it. In the atmosphere prior to the European and local elections, people are asking why house prices have torn the heart out of the economy and housing speculation has torn the heart out of society. Lending agencies have destroyed the community because of what is now required to become a mortgage slave.

The Minister, Deputy McDowell, is a lawyer. I worked as a sociologist for more than 20 years and can see the destructive effects of the housing crisis and the speculative manipulation at its core, which is the greatest problem facing us. We will not discuss that but we will have a referendum on an unstated problem the Government is pushing through. What is the public to think of that? In his speech earlier, Deputy O'Connor was worried about what people listening to this debate will say. I suppose it is a genuine concern for Fianna Fáil that the distraction might not work. It would be a disaster for the Government if people began to ask questions about health, social welfare, widows' pensions, houses, playgrounds, planning and corruption. Would that not be dreadful? It is much better to talk about 200 or 250 — what are the numbers? — so-called citizenship tourists from which the Minister is trying to save us by amending the Constitution. Perhaps he could bring them all together in one place so that we could see them. This is the kind of arrogant nonsense we heard yesterday.

The Minister suggested there was no point in referring the matter to the all-party committee because two of the parties were opposed to that course of action. He also dismissed the reports of review groups. How many people are convinced by the Minister's argument that the situation has changed radically since 1999? It is suggested that in 1999 we did not know what was going to hit us — that perhaps 250 people would emerge from the ether and rock the State, thus requiring a constitutional amendment. What rubbish.

Those producing these figures for the Minister's speech should observe the normal procedure pertaining to statistical information which involves giving one's sources. They flit easily, for example, from the figure of 444 emergency births referred to yesterday. They are not able to tell us the exact figure. We must subtract from the given figure the figure associated with those who are properly here with work permits. Then we must subtract the figures associated with those who are properly here with residential qualifications from other European Union countries and those who may be awaiting citizenship on a contested basis. What figure does one end up with? Is the public not entitled to it?

I can provide the House with one good statistic, however. It is an interesting one the Minister, Deputy McDowell, and his Fianna Fáil colleagues in particular might like to reflect on. The number of people who have abused State companies and who are now tax exiles certainly exceeds the number of non-national women who are giving birth in the State. The tax exiles have decided to have a unique relationship with the Constitution.

The Minister ended his contribution with a flourish, as he is good at doing — I suppose one learns this presenting cases in defence in the courts. He made an appeal for fidelity to the nation. I could see hands rising to people's hearts in fidelity. He said citizenship means something important to those who hold it and he referred to a sense of fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State. I am sure this means having the right to strip assets of State companies and run abroad to avoid paying capital gains tax. It means having the right to be a monopoly owner of a newspaper group and to run abroad and not be a citizen. It means having the right to take titles from foreign countries and to have a lifestyle of ostentatious expenditure. This is what I call Deputy McDowell's fidelity to the nation. He should invent a hymn and sing it when seeing off the tax exiles who strip assets and who, in a near fraud, force shareholders to sell their shares and impoverish them. They then return for the 90 days, often through Belfast, because they are probably in favour of Irish unity. They do so because they can slink into the country and not be counted. I would like to compare the cost of resources allocated to monitoring these tax exiles with those allocated to monitoring those who are asked whether they are having an emergency birth or whether they have a work permit.

Deputy O'Connor mentioned how the people will really look to TV3 to decide how to vote. I find that interesting. I did not realise that independent broadcasting had such a grip on the people just yet. The Deputy listed many areas he was visiting, even this morning, and therefore I suppose that eccentricity is appreciated for what it is. The fact of the matter is that we are entitled to a proper debate. To summarise the current position: there has been no European request; fundamental change to the Constitution is sought; the problem has not been quantified and has been distorted; and there has been no consultation. In spite of this, the tragic side of the issue is being pointed out. There is a desperate need for a proper immigration policy. This has been discussed by all the NGOs. There was a draft Bill on immigration and relationships three years ago which was forked into the shadows and of which there is now no sign.

Deputy O'Connor should note what people say to me. They ask me if there will be proposals to change the work permit from the employer to the employee. Is this not a change from a form of bonded labour to some kind of recognition of the rights of a worker? Some of us remember the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment going to South Africa, striking while the iron was hot and recruiting people for the Irish economy. There are other lists from other seminars being held concerning the number of people we will need if we are to keep the economy purring.

It is time we had a little straight talking. What has happened the Bill on immigration? Where is the legislation on work permits? Where is the education programme on inter-culturalism and anti-racism that was supposed to be established? What amount of money is being spent on that?

When did people in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform identify the opening of the floodgates yet again? I have spent all my political life listening to reports that the floodgates are opening. It was said that if we had civil divorce, not a marriage in the State would be safe. It was also said that so much activity would be going on we would not be able to move with the congestion arising from the use of condoms. We were told that water systems would clog up from such activity. Such rubbish.

Here again we have the Minister's pathetic little figure of 446 people or whatever it is that must be adjusted downwards when it gets around to counting the cost. What is the motivation for all of this? It is the great distraction, the idea that one will not speak about something very interesting. Last year 68,000 houses were built in Ireland. I do not argue if people say it was 70,000. How many houses were built for people on housing lists? It was in the region of 5,600. In the middle of the crisis in the 1980s we built 10,200 local authority houses in a single year. That issue might be raised on doorsteps throughout the country but is it not an awful lot easier to speak out of the side of one's mouth and say "we are doing something about the other thing". What is the issue about which something is being done? Then the canvasser will listen to hear it come back to him or her, nod sagely and shamefully go along on the canvass. I know too many decent people in Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats to say that this is the regular approach, but the shameful amendment of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, creates the capacity for that and he cannot walk away from those consequences.

I agree with the Minister for Defence's suggestion that what we do in regard to citizenship should take into account our relationship and history on emigration and immigration. In the terrible 1950s, for example, in 1955, 55,000 people left Ireland. In 1957, 59,000 people left Ireland; the largest number to leave in any one year. These people are scattered in different parts of the world.

One can discern the beginning of the stirrings of some of the false information between 1995 and 2000 when 658,500 came to Ireland. However, 55% of these were Irish people returning here. It is clear that a large proportion of those coming to Ireland fall into that category. In that five year period from 1995 to 2000 the figure for people from what is called "the rest of the world" was 12%. When I redid the calculations I corrected the figure of 50% to 55% for returning Irish migrants. Some 18% of these came from the United Kingdom, 13% from the rest of the European Union, 7% from the United States and 12% from the rest of the world.

There is an interesting sub-text in some of the speeches I heard during this debate, to the effect that we were a poor county that had to send our people abroad and now that our economy is healthy — although it is not doing so well for everybody — people are attracted to it. We have new obligations to defend our new condition. When we have done this we then have to begin to defend Europe as well, just in case. Who is destabilising us?

According to the anecdotal evidence the Minister cited in the House yesterday, along with several other ornamentations of the facts, as the basis for his constitutional referendum, it is a group of women who are getting pregnant and leaving the country immediately their babies are born and obtain passports. The reality is that since the Supreme Court case of O and L — the Minister stated he was involved in the Fajujonu case — giving a baby a passport does not automatically confer a right to stay on its parents. The Minister stated he would seek a constitutional amendment if he lost the O and L case, yet, having won it, he has decided to proceed with a constitutional amendment for other purposes. This needs to be clarified.

The old common law tradition we share with 40 other countries allows for humane interpretation. The most important aspect of the proposal is that it establishes a principle of inequality between children born on the same day in different circumstances. We ratified the international Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which includes a commitment to work for the reduction of statelessness, although we have not ratified the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This legislation takes us in the opposite direction and changes the current arrangement under which four babies born in the same circumstances at the same time acquire a right of citizenship under the shared common law tradition. If, for example, one of a child's parents is dead, one will have to ascertain if it qualifies for citizenship. Put simply, one does not qualify in one's own right but by virtue of one's parents meeting conditions established by the Minister and Government of the day.

Let no one argue that this legislation is not a powerful net reduction of the rights of the child. It introduces a fundamental principle of inequality between children born on the same day. It is absurd and wrong to state that the birth of a child automatically confers rights on the parents. It is also untrue and incorrect to state that if we do not change the Constitution, we are somehow dislodging a European arrangement. That is the most important issue.

I am not a lawyer, but in my work as a political scientist and sociologist for many years we were told only one thing about constitutions, which dated back to Sartory, namely, that they are, above all else, about certainty. This legislation removes certainty from the allocation of citizenship, inserts all sorts of dubious conditionalities and will have the effect of reducing the rights of the child in a universal sense.

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