The Citezenship Referendum: The Aftermath

omnicorp

Can I just take this chance to say That I am disgusted by the people who voted yes in the Referendum.
If this were an International law I wouldn't have been a citizen of any country until I was 4 as I was born in the US and then moved to Scotland and then Ireland.

Remember, Bad laws are elected by good citizens who don't vote.
I blame it on a low turnout.

Well now we can reap the damages...

JohnK

Don't blame me, I voted No. To be honest, I still can't understand why anybody voted yes. All that was needed was the proper application of existing laws to counter those taking advantage of the system.

arcadegame2004

This poll was very unrepresentative of the referendum result last time. It is a poll of internet-users, not registered voters.Let's just be clear on that first. It would again pass. I voted Yes and would still do so. To those unpatriotic types who love running down the country I say:if you dislike your country so much, then there are 146 others for you to go to.

No other EU state allowed citizenship solely deriving from being born here. So if we are to be charged with acting wrongly on this issue so should they.

To say that we broke International law on citizenship by voting yes is to accuse the entire EU of breaching international-law. Take that to the World Court and be laughed out of Court.

McDowell, hurry up and ratify the referendum result!

The_Conductor

Ok this is a far better venue for debating the relative merits of the citzenship referendum than the thread on migrant workers......
I voted yes in the referendum, and were I given the opportunity would do the exact same again tomorrow.
All the bashing of McDowell and scaremongering were wrong- the entire issue was made into an emotive issue, when in actual fact all it was doing was closing loopholes in our laws and obligations to our EU neighbours.
The reason the NI parties were more than a little non-plussed- was that it did effectively dilute the right of people born in NI along with those in the Rebublic, to automatically claim citizenship, solely by virtue of the fact of where they were born. British emmigration lawyers were cheerfully sending their pregnant clients to Belfast to give birth- allowing their offspring claim Irish and hence EU citizenship, and through this, effectively shortcircuiting the rights of the British to implement their own immigration policies.

I am not even going to address the perceived abuses that are alleged to have occurred both in the past and present here- I'm sure Arcadegame2004 has lots to say on this.......


Shane

Hobbes

omnicorp wrote:

If this were an International law I wouldn't have been a citizen of any country until I was 4 as I was born in the US and then moved to Scotland and then Ireland.

It is an international law. You would of been the nationality of your parents, failing that where you were born.

bobbyjoe

Still would vote No. Whole thing was a sham.

The joke is that its going to make no difference except take away an important part of our constitution and give the racists ammunition and divide our society.

when in actual fact all it was doing was closing loopholes in our laws and obligations to our EU neighbours.

In fact anyone born on the island of Ireland has been entitled to citizenship since the foundation of the state this wasn't some new loophole which suddenly appeared. Regarding obligations to our EU neighbours they've never had any problem with our citizenship laws.

You'd think it would be enacted asap considering the floods of pregnant asylum seekers landing at the airport. Also remember all the hysteria generated about maternity hospitals etc... All bull...........

arcadegame2004

I blame it on a low turnout.

What? 59.5%. A VERY high turnout for an Irish referendum, and just 3% points lower than the General Election turnout of 2002.

If anything the referendum put the turnout up.

AngelofFire

If anything the referendum put the turnout up.

exactly, the governments cunning plan to deflect public attention from cutbacks and increase in stealth taxes worked.They targeted innocent children for the purpose of political points scoring.

arcadegame2004

If you gave the children citizenship then in the real world, citizenship for the parent(s) would eventually follow, irrespective of what the law does or does not say. The Pandora's box had to be closed.

Nowhere in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does it mention the right of children of all women from the Third World to citizenship in the First World.

The_Conductor

AngelofFire wrote:

exactly, the governments cunning plan to deflect public attention from cutbacks and increase in stealth taxes worked.They targeted innocent children for the purpose of political points scoring.

Really?
The stated reason for holding both polls on the one day, was indeed to encourage turnout, but also to minimise expenditure.
And if it really was a cunning plan to deflect public attention- it didn't really work very well did it?
By the way I'd love to see what your definition of cutback is?
According to several commentators cutbacks were not actual, rather they were a deferal or a cancellation of expected expenditure. Actual expenditure in many cases of perceived cutbacks (the healthboards being a case in point) was in actual fact increased. The reason there are so many empty facilities scattered around the country- has more to do with the manner in which NDP funding was lavished around the place for capital expenditure, with total disregard as to what to do once the capital facilities being funded were in actual fact in place. Brilliant- Mullingar got a new hospital- but they never bothered to check whether they had any workers to staff it...... bit of an oversight there don't you think?
Then there is the likes of the NWHB who mysteriously managed to build a nice Euro 9million headquarters in Leitrim, somehow without ever even having to request the money from the DoHC. ????? What the hell is going on?

AngelofFire

By the way I'd love to see what your definition of cutback is?

in 2002 the government cut money from clinical physchology courses in TCD,that was the same year that the mid western healthboard were looking to recruit more clinical physchologists, not to mention the cut in spending on 3rd level education and failing to increase funding for special needs people, and the withdrawl of 30,000 medical cards despte the fact that the government had made promises to provide 200,000 medical cards and to increase funding for the handicapped which had increased every year from 1989 to 2001.

Hobbes

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Nowhere in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does it mention the right of children of all women from the Third World to citizenship in the First World.

Your looking in the wrong place and that is a pretty racist and elitist comment.

So if an Irish guy marries a woman from the third world his children should be denied citizenship here?

Sparks

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I voted Yes and would still do so. To those unpatriotic types who love running down the country I say:if you dislike your country so much, then there are 146 others for you to go to.

192 actually. Or don't the other 46 count because they're full of ****, spicks, wogs, jews, and other durty foreigners, arcarde?

Tuars

smccarrick wrote:

I am not even going to address the perceived abuses that are alleged to have occurred both in the past and present here- I'm sure Arcadegame2004 has lots to say on this.......

perceived is the operative word in that sentence. arcadegame2004 has said a lot about this alright and it's been pointed out numerous times that the referendum does not address these perceived abuses.

Changing the citizenship law will not affect the asylum-seeking process since that does not involve citizenship in the first place.

The intention of the referendum was to stop so-called citizenship tourists i.e. people who wanted Irish citizenship as a means to EU residency but never intended to stay in Ireland long enough to abuse the system.

It was also a handy way for the government to claim they were tackling illegal immigration without actually having to do anything at all.

Can we close this thread now and put a link back to one of the pre-referendum threads on this subject. It would save us a lot of time and energy cutting-and-pasting our arguments. Nothing has changed.

Tuars

arcadegame2004 wrote:

To those unpatriotic types who love running down the country I say:if you dislike your country so much, then there are 146 others for you to go to.

Not if the likes of you have their way. As long as they have laws like those that you're cheerleading then they won't let us in. So I'm afraid your stuck with us. As I warned before the referendum there will be unintended side-effects.

Tough luck arcade but them's the breaks .

MadsL

arcadegame2004 wrote:

If you gave the children citizenship then in the real world, citizenship for the parent(s) would eventually follow, irrespective of what the law does or does not say. The Pandora's box had to be closed.

Nowhere in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does it mention the right of children of all women from the Third World to citizenship in the First World.

Since you brought it up...It does not say that...but it does say
Principle 6

The child, for the full and harmonious development of his personality, needs love and understanding. He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents, and, in any case, in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security; a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his mother. Society and the public authorities shall have the duty to extend particular care to children without a family and to those without adequate means of support. Payment of State and other assistance towards the maintenance of children of large families is desirable.

The current situation opens the possibility that the parents of a child born in this country are deported and that the child whilst having a perfect right to remain as a citizen of the Republic may be forcibly removed from the country, subjected to the distress of deportation and possible separation from its mother and is possibly placed back into harms way. This raises the question of whether it is in the child's interest that it remain in the republic.

DadaKopf

I wasn't in the country to vote but would have voted 'no'. I did everything I could to piece together what happened over there. When I came back, I asked around, asked people who had been here, who had voted about what went wrong.

Without fail, people dodged the question and chaged the subject.

*Shrugs*

dahamsta

arcadegame2004 wrote:

To those unpatriotic types who love running down the country

Umm, how would voting no be "running down the country" exactly? Or "unpatriotic" for that matter. I can't wait to hear the logic behind this garbage...

adam

MadsL

Oh and Arcade you still have not responded to the question I asked in the EU Migrant thread...
You said in this post

"With 6% of the population identifying themselves as "not Irish" on the Census form in 2002, it is clear that the ability of the immigrants to assimilate is open to question."

The census form asks this question...

What is your Nationality?
If you have more than one nationality, please declare all of them.
Irish ____
Other Nationality _______
No Nationality __________

Can you please explain to me how the fact that I truthfully wrote my Nationality in a box when legally obligated to do so by the Government makes it clear that my "ability ... to assimilate is open to question"

Now you have me worried...will the culture police come knocking down my door..."Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated!"

C'mon Arcade - wft????

Lennoxschips

The UN stated in their Human Development Report that the best way for immigrants to succeed and integrage into a new society is for them to maintain their own unique identity and not to try too musch to assimilate. A multinational society, they concluded, was the best way forward for everyone involved.

Redleslie2

Voted no and would do again. The impression I got from talking to people who voted yes was that they were convinced there were hordes of africans on the way to the country to drop their sprogs. Where did they get that idea I wonder.

The amendment should have been worded as follows:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, a Darkie born on the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, who does not have, at the time of the birth of that person, at least one parent who is an Irish citizen or entitled to be an Irish citizen is not entitled to Irish citizenship or nationality, unless provided for by law.

Sparks

One of the things that bothered me about this was that many of those who said they were voting yes, turned out when I talked to them to in fact think they were voting on whether or not to accept the government's proposed amendment - very, very, very few knew that in fact they were voting on letting the government make up whatever law they wanted to. That's just plain disturbing - a nation voting on something and the majority don't know what they're voting for?

arcadegame2004

Umm, how would voting no be "running down the country" exactly? Or "unpatriotic" for that matter. I can't wait to hear the logic behind this garbage...

I am not saying that voting "No" makes the person unpatriotic. I said that those who love running down the country all the time are unpatriotic (if they are Irish).

MadsL, your quoting of the UN Declaration actually strengthens my arguments. The parents and child ideally should not be separated. By removing the ability of a non-national woman to use her child as a legal weapon aimed at staying in Ireland, we deter such women from coming here, hence the precursor to potential separation after giving birth in Ireland is prevented. Thereby supporting the ideals of keeping the family together.

I would want to come to Ireland too if I lived in the Third World. But then, I would like not to have to pay tax aswell, nor to have to pay when I go into a shop. We would all like things to be like that. But in the real world, the well-being of the nation requires that certain rules pertain. Without rules, you will have anarchy.

MadsL

Why are you ignoring my question about the census??????

arcadegame2004

MadsL, comparing most of the immigrants coming to Ireland nowadays with immigrant from the UK where you came from is not comparing like with like, because being a fellow rich country, the UK is not going to be a cause of mass-migration to Ireland, and conseqently nor will it put a serious burden on the Health-Service. And there would hardly be a risk of cheap labour from the UK! :rolleyes:

But many of the African and Middle Eastern Muslim migrants in particular come from cultures where the local mullah extoles the 'virtues' of suicide bombings every Friday at the mosque. Experience in the UK has been that unfortunately, the Muslim community there includes a lot of these kind of wackos. We do NOT need this in Ireland. We have had enough experience of terrorism as it is. That is not to scapegoat the entire Muslim populace who immigrate here or to the West. But it is untrue to deny that a substantial minority of Middle Eastern Muslims espouse these crazy ideologies. Look at the opinion-polls in some of these countries.

MadsL

But in the real world, the well-being of the nation requires that certain rules pertain.

In the real world the well-being of a nation generally require immigration to counter the effects of emigration.

It behoves a nation to treat it's immigrants according to the law (due process - not losing faxes and the like) and with consideration...there is no reason that immigrants children should not have citizenship once they are legally resident.

By removing the ability of a non-national woman to use her child as a legal weapon aimed at staying in Ireland, we deter such women from coming here, hence the precursor to potential separation after giving birth in Ireland is prevented. Thereby supporting the ideals of keeping the family together.

More pejorotive language - legal weapon!

The govt has only recently allowed spouses of Filipino Nurses to stay in the country ffs! You will be hard pushed to find examples of this country's "ideals of keeping the family together".

There is nothing that the Citizenship Referendum achieved that a well-managed and humane immigration policy couldn't have done 100 times better...as has been shown recently the GNIB are generally unfair and incompetant, this should have been addressed before all the alarmist nonsense pre-referendum.

MadsL

arcadegame2004 wrote:

MadsL, comparing most of the immigrants coming to Ireland nowadays with immigrant from the UK where you came from is not comparing like with like, because being a fellow rich country, the UK is not going to be a cause of mass-migration to Ireland, and conseqently nor will it put a serious burden on the Health-Service. And there would hardly be a risk of cheap labour from the UK! :rolleyes: .

My point was that by answering a question about my nationality on the census which I am required to do (€25,000 fine) you seem to jump to the conclusion that anyone who ticks non-Irish doesn't want to assimilate.
I want you to either justify or withdraw that racist remark!

Actually there are more immigrants in Ireland from USA and Germany than there are Africans. Germans and Americans get free health care too.(Census 2002)

arcadegame2004 wrote:

But many of the African and Middle Eastern Muslim migrants in particular come from cultures where the local mullah extoles the 'virtues' of suicide bombings every Friday at the mosque. Experience in the UK has been that unfortunately, the Muslim community there includes a lot of these kind of wackos. We do NOT need this in Ireland. We have had enough experience of terrorism as it is. That is not to scapegoat the entire Muslim populace who immigrate here or to the West. But it is untrue to deny that a substantial minority of Middle Eastern Muslims espouse these crazy ideologies. Look at the opinion-polls in some of these countries.

There are wackos in every culture. But it is deeply wrong to assume that they are wacko as a result of their religion...have the experiences of Ireland not taught you that yet??

I notice that in another thread you were asking for Muslim kids to be integrated into Irish schools, well I guess we had better get those wacky priests outta there first!

Perhaps you should read up on Africa and Islam before spouting more scaremongering...The Economist doesn't seem to agree with you...
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1880209

MadsL

Oh, and Arcade (Mr Authority on the middle east) - can you name me one muslim country you have ever visited???

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

arcadegame2004

The govt has only recently allowed spouses of Filipino Nurses to stay in the country ffs! You will be hard pushed to find examples of this country's "ideals of keeping the family together".

Filipino nurses are legally in this country and were invited by the Government. They therefore do not constitute people who arrived illegally and pregnant to have citizenship-babies for cynical purposes. Please do not mirepresent my position. I have repeatedly made the point that I accept the need for limited migration to fill job vacancies where they arise, while doggedly resisting excessive uncontrolled migration of the kind that would cause a race to the bottom in wages in parts of industry not experiencing labour-shortages (especially after the rise in unemployment to 5.1%).

My point was that by answering a question about my nationality on the census which I am required to do (€25,000 fine) you seem to jump to the conclusion that anyone who ticks non-Irish doesn't want to assimilate.

My "assimilation" point in an earlier thread was not aimed at ALL migrants. It largely relates to the Muslim ones. Please do not tell me that the extremist clerics I see on the news are a tiny minority in the Muslim world. A minority maybe. But a large one.

The_Conductor

AngelofFire wrote:

in 2002 the government cut money from clinical physchology courses in TCD,that was the same year that the mid western healthboard were looking to recruit more clinical physchologists, not to mention the cut in spending on 3rd level education and failing to increase funding for special needs people, and the withdrawl of 30,000 medical cards despte the fact that the government had made promises to provide 200,000 medical cards and to increase funding for the handicapped which had increased every year from 1989 to 2001.

As you are no doubt well aware, TCD has the highest capitation per student of any university in Ireland. FYI - the intake in Clinical psychology in Maynooth was up 1% in 2002. SFI funding (which are exchequer funds) rose for the Hamilton institute in 2002.
If my memory serves me correctly- the clinical psychology course in trinity was to have had 12 students on it- but was cancelled at short notice, because Trinity neglected to secure funding for the course at short notice and decided to keep on staff on research measures instead (including newly appointed staff members in Developmental Psychology and a specialist in Neuropsychology (I distinctly remember an interview with Dr. Henry at the time....)
Also- while you are mentioning the 12 places that were cut in Trinity- in 2002 35 places were offered by direct access in UCD on their clinical psychology programme for the first time (along with a further 35 places being ring fenced for NUI college students).

I believe this addresses your definition sufficiently......

S.