The cynicism behind Michael McDowell's citizenship referendum can be perceived in the fact that many election candidates, though privately critical of the amendment, are reluctant to express their opposition because of a belief that an element of the electorate, nurturing resentments towards immigrants, is waiting to punish anything resembling a pro-immigrant sentiment. Clearly, the referendum was designed and timed to wrongfoot such candidates. That a few have spoken up, notwithstanding, is to their credit, writers John Waters.
Most unforgivable about this is not the cynicism, which is to be expected, but the misuse of the Constitution, the concept of citizenship, and the broader concept of nationhood, for a cheap political end. Especially nauseating is the idea that this amendment has something to do with upholding Article 9.2 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, which declares: "Fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State are fundamental political duties of all citizens."
This amendment, if passed, will represent a substantial milestone on the road to the final deconstruction of the Irish nation. Much has been made of the constitutional "loophole" arising from the amendment enacted in 1998 to enable the Belfast Agreement, which we are led to believe opened up Irish citizenship in a manner unintended. There is another way of looking at it. The discussion of 1998 was aimed at finding a way to retain the aspiration to Irish unity without hamstringing the peace agreement. To maintain some connection between territory and nation, a provision was inserted in the Constitution whereby anyone born on the island of Ireland would automatically be entitled to Irish citizenship. This amendment will abolish that connection.
In future, membership of the Irish nation will derive not from an entitlement of birth, but through a process of naturalisation to be established from the family context of the individual. This will affect not merely immigrants, but everyone henceforth born in Ireland, ensuring that the place of one's birth, of itself, will become irrelevant to one's sense of national belonging.
Indeed, symbolically, the measure will retroactively attack the connection between every Irish citizen and the land of Ireland, rendering irrelevant that connection between territory and nationhood elevated to mythic status in the writings of our historical leaders and authors, which most of us have hitherto assumed to be the very essence of Irishness.
From the moment this amendment is enacted, the fact that I was born in Ireland becomes an unimportant, even meaningless, aspect of my identity, as my claim to Irish citizenship will henceforth derive from the connection with Ireland established by my parents.
There is another reason why this amendment represents an abuse of the Constitution. It is quite clear that the framers of Bunreacht Na hÉireannn wished to avoid creating a precise - never mind exclusive - definition of citizenship. Indeed, there is an assumption throughout the Constitution that the protections of citizenship should extend to the maximum. In several articles, the terms "citizen" and "person" are used interchangeably, often in a manner indicating no logic or purpose other than the assumption that they are, in fact, interchangeable.
The creation of a category of person expressly denied citizenship by the Constitution is certain to have unpredictable consequences for the rights of some people who find themselves living here in various kinds of ambiguous circumstances. For example, a child born here in the future to an Irish father and a non-national mother who are not married to one another may find herself /himself subsequently unable to claim the citizenship to which she or he is constitutionally entitled.
Under the recent Civil Registration Act, there is no obligation for the father's name to be registered; so, should the parental relationship break up and the mother take the child to her own country, that child may have no means of claiming the protections of Michael McDowell's remodelled Constitution. Irish citizenship, already disconnected from the territory of Ireland, is further abstracted by the elimination of paternal lineage. This will mean that only children whose mothers have lived in Ireland for the statutory period will be certain of an uncomplicated claim to Irish citizenship.
Put another way, a Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform which in one arena has done nothing to safeguard relationships between fathers and children seeks to tell us in a different context that the rights of future citizens shall be safeguarded by means of a connection which it has treated with outright contempt.
Those voting in the Ireland East constituency on Friday will have a double opportunity to respond to the unprincipled cynicism of Minister McDowell. They can vote No to his shame-inducing amendment and Vote Number 1 for Liam Ó Gogain, an Independent standing in the Euro elections on the platform of parental rights, and, as far as I know, the only genuine human rights candidate in these elections.