The election rules for the Seanad should be overhauled to allow Northern Ireland voters to choose representatives from a national electoral list, Sinn Féin proposed yesterday.
The changes would mean an end to the rights of county and city councillors and some third-level graduates to select most of the membership of the Upper House of the Oireachtas.
Sinn Féin also wants Northern Westminster MPs to be given the right to speak in the Dáil on issues relating to the peace process, and matters that affect Northern Ireland, though not to vote.
The party yesterday submitted its list of proposals - which largely reflect recommendations made in 2002 by the All-Party Committee on the Constitution - to the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and to Opposition party leaders.
Sinn Féin MLA for Newry/Armagh, Mr Conor Murphy, said: "Speaking as an Irish citizen from the North, I certainly have been denied to be included in the political life of this nation. Nationalists have been denied that right for more than 80 years, despite the fact that that right has been affirmed in the Constitution.
"This generation of nationalists does not accept second-class citizenship in the North and we will not accept being treated as such," he said.
The All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution was instructed by the Taoiseach to investigate ways of reflecting the voice of Northerners in the Oireachtas after the Good Friday agreement was signed.
However, Sinn Féin accused Mr Ahern of deliberate delay. "We believe that the Taoiseach prevaricated on the recommendations. He has sent back the recommendations to the constitutional review committee.
"This is a stalling device," said SF Cavan/Monaghan TD, Mr Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.
"I have repeatedly called on him to act. We have continued to do so since the general election. The time for action is now and it is long overdue."
In addition, Northern voters should be able to vote in presidential elections, he said. "We have a President with a Co Down address, who would not be able to vote herself," said Mr Ó Caoláin.
Clearly unhappy about plans to penalise Sinn Féin for any future IRA actions, the party chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, condemned the Government for backing the British government's sanction proposals.
"We are disappointed that the Government has associated itself with such a blatant breach of the Good Friday agreement," he said, adding there were already "very powerful" penalties possible under the agreement.
