Government claims that a crisis in maternity hospitals created a need for a citizenship referendum are "spurious", a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party has claimed in a new booklet.
Mr Kieran Allen
Mr Kieran Allen, author of the booklet and lecturer in sociology at University College Dublin, has argued that almost 18,000 fewer babies were born in 2000, than in 1981.
He also claimed the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, was not providing clear figures of the breakdown of births of non-nationals in maternity hospitals.
Documents released last week by Mr McDowell showed the masters of the maternity hospitals were claiming that 20 per cent of births in the Coombe hospital in 2002 were to non-nationals while the figure for the Rotunda hospital was 28 per cent in the same year.
Mr Allen also claims Mr McDowell and the Government are playing "the race card" by holding a referendum on citizenship and deflecting public anger away from the Government and onto immigrants.
"The Government is saying the problem is there are too many black babies," Mr Allen told ireland.com.
Citizenship and Racism: The case against McDowell's Referendumwas commissioned by the Socialist Workers' Party and is available from them for €3.