Higgins pours scorn on birth figures

The Labour Party has questioned the Government's need to bring Ireland's citizenship laws in line with the rest of the EU when harmony does not exist in other areas.

Mr Michael D. Higgins, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, said that "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."

Sharply criticising the statistics from the Minister for Justice about the number of non-national emergency births, Mr Higgins said 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 referendum proposal aims to remove the automatic entitlement to Irish citizenship on grounds of birth alone.

The Minister for Justice had made an appeal for "fidelity to the nation" and that citizenship meant something important to those who held it.

"I could see hands rising to people's hearts in fidelity," he said.

"I am sure this means having the right to strip assets of State companies and run abroad to avoid paying capital gains tax."

The Minister 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."

Earlier, the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, said that "citizenship should be much more than a matter of geographical fact. It is about loyalty to the State and fidelity to the nation."

Mr Smith said that "by setting a very reasonable three-year period of residency for one or more non-national parents before citizenship rights are granted to a child, Ireland will compare more than favourably with the time periods for the acquisition of citizenship in all other jurisdictions".

He rejected as "frankly a contemptible suggestion that the Government would try to exploit the insidious evil of racism for political gain..." He said it was "one of the most offensive political slurs I have encountered over long years of service in this House".