Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will move to the Bill shortly. I will address the 2004 referendum first since it has been discussed. This was the first campaign that I was involved in after my return from America, where I was a migrant for many years. In the US, many of my fellow migrants had formed relationships and had children, and some were working to regularise their status. Many migrants, whether documented, undocumented, legal, or illegal, including fellow Irish migrants, knew that their children would at least be guaranteed a basic level of security and entitled to citizenship in the country that they were born. Their child, born in America, would have the same rights, entitlement and chance of a life there and to contribute to that country as any other child born there. That was a very important principle. It was quite a shock when I came home to Ireland and saw that the State was moving away from that principle. It is very different from the tradition in the rest of Europe. Ireland won its status as a republic. It was a referendum that made us less of a republic because it took away from the simple principle of a republic which is different from the historical origins of many of our close colleagues who we work with in Europe in that we came to democracy as a republic with a basic principle of equality. It was not something that we grew towards but was part of the founding of our State in 1916 and, according to the programme for commemoration of the first Dáil for next year, the first duty of the State is to all children. That is what Ireland was as a republic and it was diminished by that referendum.

I disagree with my colleague that people did not talk about concerns of it being racist at the time.