Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. The concept of home is a very powerful one. It relates to a sense of belonging, a sense of community and it is the anchor in many of our lives. For those of us with a home it means that whatever the misfortune, ill health or crisis there is always a sanctuary. If one talks to people who are homeless they will talk about the gaping hole that it leaves, and about the stress and uncertainty of not having a place to call their own. What is in question in this debate is something very similar and no less fundamental. The reality in Ireland today, as the Minister has acknowledged, is that there are children who are either stateless or citizens of a country that is completely alien to them. They think of themselves as Irish but our legal system declines to recognise their identity and all because, in 2004, the Government of the day decided that it needed to stop so-called maternity tourism. It was a cruel decision then. It was challenged by my party, the Labour Party, and by many others in civil society who foresaw the damage that it would do. In recent years, we, as a country, have embraced a broader and more inclusive view of what it means to be Irish. Certainly, we believe that it is well past the time to extend that spirit of equality to those who should and would have been citizens had the twenty-seventh amendment not been passed.

The time has come to restore birthright citizenship, which should never have been taken away. I am very proud, as a Labour Party Senator, that the leader of our party in the Seanad, Senator Bacik, brought forward this Bill in 2018 and has brought it forward again today. The Bill was spearheaded by the Senator, campaigned on by Labour Youth and many other groups, and campaigned on so passionately by the late Cormac Ó Braonáin.

I want to acknowledge the comments made by the Minister and representatives of the other parties who will speak in support of the objectives of our Bill. It is critical that we press on with this Bill and do not delay because its importance for the many new Irish families cannot be understated. There are children in this country who are living under a cloud of uncertainty. They never know if or when the notice of intention to deport may arrive for their parents. They never know how safe they are in the country they call home. It is a life sentence having to live under the radar so these parents are without a driver's licence or passport, without access to the rights and duties of citizenship, and without the ability to work lawfully. This is a situation that is ripe for exploitation. Even though children born here who may now be young adults, about to turn 18 years or go to college, speak with an Irish accent and received all of their education here could, for whatever reason, be hit with a notice of intention to deport. They could be sent to a country halfway across the world, and a country that they have never known, all because with the 2004 referendum there is now no legal avenue for children born to undocumented parents to acquire residency or citizenship at a later stage in their lives. Restoring the right to citizenship is the only answer that can fit with our view of ourselves as members of a fair, just, free and equitable country.It is not enough to say that the rate of deportations is very low, for which we should be thankful, or that parents can apply for permission to remain and then access a legal path to residency. That is not acceptable. We cannot leave to chance the rights of children born here or brought here as babies. We cannot leave those rights to the discretion of officials in the Department of Justice. We cannot have an arbitrary system of immigration in which these matters are left to the discretion of civil servants. We need a standard system for all babies born here, particularly in cases where parents could be refused permission on so-called character grounds, that is to say, if they have a conviction or other matter on their file. Where does that leave the child?

The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2004 stands out as one of modern Ireland's great hypocrisies. If one is born with the right heritage and the right Irish blood in any part of the world, one can have Irish citizenship as long as one can prove that link through one grandparent. If one actually lives in Ireland and was born in Ireland, it does not matter whether one speaks the language, whether one knows and loves the country or whether one thinks of this place as one's only home if one has the misfortune of one's parents not having the right paperwork. It is not acceptable that we continue to cut these young people off from full legal recognition within the Irish national family. We cannot continue to deny them the full and enduring security in their home that only the right to citizenship can provide.