Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support what Deputy Howlin has outlined in his contribution although I am not going to go into the same level of detail as he did on foot of his legal advice. It is a very serious decision that the Department is making here, to introduce this in the way it is being introduced. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties had not even seen this and only heard about it today. The council sent an email this afternoon to Members in respect of the Minister's amendment. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is deeply opposed to this. IHREC is a Government-funded organisation that does very good work and challenges what the Government is doing, which is very important. We had to submit amendments before we actually saw the Minister's proposed amendments to this Bill, which is a farce. The Government is making a farce of the legislative process. One could be forgiven for thinking that this is actually deliberate and is timed to come in at this stage, with amendments only coming through on one of the last sitting days of the Dáil term. This is going to be rushed through tonight. It is going to be railroaded through because the Minister has the numbers to do so but these are very serious changes that she is proposing to citizenship.

Yes, the Minister can say, as has been outlined, that this will affect only a small number of people and so on, but that is how it starts. It affects a small number of people now. In a few years' time, it will affect more and more people. We are reinforcing the idea that there are two classes of citizens in this country. That is wrong, and we should be cautious. If the Minister were to do things right, she would remove this provision from this legislation today and bring forward in September legislation that we could put through and discuss. Legislation could be passed probably by the end of the year in the normal way, with reasonable time to discuss it, and people could actually look at it and see what it means.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has outlined very serious concerns. It stated:

[T]he ... Bill does not provide the procedural safeguards required to meet the high standards of natural justice necessary to a person facing severe consequences described by the Supreme Court in Damache v Minister for Justice.

That is very strong language for the commission to use in relation to this matter. I am sorry, but the Department has taken a decision to rush the legislation through at this time. There is no doubt about that. The Minister will probably say that this is not the case, that it is by pure coincidence that this has come up at this time, that we have to put it through, that we are under pressure to sort it out and so on. In reality, however, this is being rushed through.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission goes on to state that "The ongoing lack of clarity on the appropriate threshold for the Minister to initiate a revocation process" is very concerning. It also states that there are "Unnecessarily short and unreasonable timeframes for a naturalised citizen facing revocation of citizenship to engage in the process". It is also concerned about "The level of independence afforded to the Committee of Inquiry" that has been established and "The extent to which procedural safeguards can be circumscribed when issues of national security are raised". The commission states: "The Bill gives the Minister wide scope to determine how the revocation mechanism will function in practice."

What is proposed will have wide-ranging implications right across the Government. It is bad practice. I have spoken about this every July since I have been here and highlighted that this always happens. It is part of the process. It is bad enough that any legislation would be done this way, but for legislation of this seriousness to be rushed through in this process is completely wrong. It is a shame on this House that it allows the Government to do this and it is a shame that the Government has put this forward.

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