John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I wish to explain why I will be voting for this Bill. As it stands the Constitution contains an anomaly. The generous constitutional allowance, which gives citizenship to a child on birth, has been abused. That is the only reason. There are no complications or variations. I have no wish to take a political stance other than recommending that this generosity not be abused. People have arrived here to have their children and attempted to use the citizenship thus obtained to gain entry to a third country. This clearly shows it was like buying a ticket and needed to be changed. As this provision stands in the Constitution, we must change the Constitution.

The party of which I am a member is generous in spirit and in nature. Racism has no place in Fianna Fáil and has no place in the Government. When we go to the polls, all right minded and thinking people will vote, speak and deal with this issue in a very sound, stable, moderate fashion. Sadly, some may use this referendum for their own ends and try to make people who are here feel unwelcome. This is a reality, which I despise.

We have given more than 30,000 work visas to people who are making the country wealthier and ensuring that some of our industries such as tourism and agriculture, particularly sectors such as mushroom picking, can survive. We owe a debt of gratitude to those people. As is done in the United States, I would like to see people granted citizenship after contributing, which would be just and appropriate, particularly on the eve of ten additional states joining the European Union.

The EEC could have decided in the early 1970s that we were too poor or that we could not be brought up to its standards and refused our entry. However, it had a generosity of spirit and was willing to share. Ultimately, the whole became much greater than the sum of the parts, which will happen again tomorrow. The Government should match this in every possible way by showing how generous in spirit it is and signalling our intention to allow Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey join the Union. Realistically, we cannot look at the Urals and say that Russia forms the border of Europe — it does not. Russia is part of Europe and we must be sufficiently generous to be inclusive in 20, 30 or 40 years' time.

What we have in Europe is something enlightening. As President of the European Union, tomorrow Ireland will have the great honour of welcoming those ten countries. I reiterate that racism has no part in the Government or in any of the mainstream parties. We should be very wary in the referendum to ensure that we denounce those who would introduce any aspect of racism into the debate.