The Government has yet to allay SDLP concerns about the forthcoming referendum on Irish citizenship, it was claimed today.
SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan said he was still waiting for the Government to honour a promise that it would respond to his party's concerns about the proposal to change the entitlement of children born in Northern Ireland to become Irish citizens.
SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan
Voters on Friday are being asked to agree to a proposal to change the Constitution with will, among other changes, deny Irish citizenship to children born in Northern Ireland to non-nationals.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, argues current rule which grants citizenship is being exploited to enable people to live in other EU countries.
Nationalists in Northern Ireland, however, have insisted that the right to Irish citizenship for people born in Northern Ireland is enshrined in the Belfast Agreement, and they have accused the Dublin government of sending out a message to unionists that the 1998 accord can be renegotiated.
Mr Durkan said today: "The Taoiseach responded to a letter I sent to him in April. I wrote another letter expressing some outstanding concerns that I had.
SDLP leader Mr Mark Durkan
"I was assured at meetings I had with the Taoiseach and with junior minister Brian Lenihan, and through a meeting my colleagues had with the Justice Minister Michael McDowell, that my concerns would be answered.
"I was told that they could be answered satisfactorily and that there was Attorney General's advice to cover the points that I had raised," he said. "I still await my reply."
Mr Durkan revealed that advisers to Mr McDowell had also indicated they would respond to his concerns about the referendum proposal satisfactorily in return for his endorsement for a Yes vote on Friday.
However the SDLP leader said he refused to take a position until he received that reply. "I am not getting into ultimatums or anything else," he insisted today.
Mr Durkan said the issue of citizenship was of fundamental importance to the Belfast Agreement and also to the Irish Constitution. He said it was the one section of the constitution that was about everybody living on the island. The SDLP, he said, wanted a more reasoned approach to the debate.
PA