Reaction/Yes campaign: The Government now has a "clear mandate" to bring in legislation on citizenship as quickly as possible, the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs has said.
Ms Coughlan, who was also Fianna Fáil's director of elections for the referendum campaign, said on Saturday: "The overwhelming majority in favour of the proposal has given a very clear mandate to the Government to bring in new legislation as soon as possible."
Ms Coughlan said the referendum result showed there was "resounding support" for the Government's proposal.
Fianna Fáil "ran a strong and very positive campaign for a Yes vote based on giving the people the facts of the proposed change".
She did not believe that Yes voters were motivated in any way by prejudice against immigrants or asylum-seekers. "Anyone I have spoken to did not support it in any racist way."
Echoing her comments, the Minster for Justice, Mr McDowell, said he believed "a really big apology" was due to Yes voters "from those who said this was a racist proposal because by inference they are saying their votes for it were racist votes".
Mr McDowell said: "I have said from the very beginning that this referendum...was one where it was a common sense proposal we put to the people.
"We were assaulted with the most promiscuous use of language; people saying it was racist, that it was dividing Ireland, that it was polarising people, that we were using the race card for political advantage."
He said the "very big" turnout for the referendum meant "people can't say it's an unrepresentative decision".
The people had "listened to a three-month debate, and made up their mind on the issue". That had vindicated the decision to hold the referendum on the same day as the European and local elections.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said the Government had secured "an excellent result" in the referendum.
"I think the message was clear, and people obviously understood it, and made the right decision both for Ireland and Europe," Mr Cullen said.