PUP fraud €183k, should the guilty be stripped of citizenship?

This is a republic. We have a constitutional principle of equality before the law. We don't have second-class citizenship. End of.

Ireland is not like the UK (or Canada). The UK is a monarchy. The rights and duties of citizenship are conferred on subjects by the sovereign, and the sovereign can confer different classes of citizenship on different people, and take away rights and duties previously conferred, as it may please the sovereign. The individuals affected have no cause for complaint because they never had any right to citizenship in the first place; it was given to them by the sovereign.

In Ireland the people are sovereign. The government or the President do not confer citizenship on us; rather we confer authority on them. So citizenship is not something created by political authority; political authority is something created by citizens. That's a fundamental reversal of the flow of authority and legitimacy which has profound implications for what citizenship in Ireland is, as opposed to citizenship in countries with, lets face it, a lesser view of citizenship. That's why the idea of a minister depriving you of Irish citizenship because he thinks you are insufficiently virtuous is fundamentally incongruous in a way that's not true in the UK (or, for all I know, in Canada).

Plus, constitutional theory aside, nobody is even pretending to offer a pragmatic argument as to why it's necessary or desirable to punish citizens by naturalisation more severely than citizens by birth or descent. There's no connection at all between the nature of your citizenship and the gravity or consequences of your crime. If we can accommodate some citizens retaining their citizenship after committing a crime, why the pressing need to deprive others of their citizenship after committing the exact same crime? Unequal punishment is fundamentally objectionable. At the very least, you need a compelling justification for it. And none is being offered.

I hate to say it, but the motivation for this seems to be primarily racism. The examples offered by those who advocate this treatment invariably involve people of colour. Instances where it has been done in other countries that are lauded also invariably involve people of colour. I struggle to think that this is a coincidence, especially when no other reason for depriving some people but not others of citizenship is offered.

For what it's worth, the rule in the UK is not that naturalised citizens can be deprived; it's that any citizen cab be deprived, so long as the Secretary of State is satisfied that they have an entitlement to some other nationality. I still consider this objectionable— the UK still has second-class citizens; they are just defining the class slightly differently. But that's not my point here; my point is that this power, while not explicitly racially-based, is applied in a racially-biased way, and that is very much what its supporters want and expect.

We can see this in the case of Shamima Begum, a British Citizen by birth, who has been deprived despite never having been charged with, much less convicted of, any offence committed anywhere. By contrast there are numerous white British Citizens with dual nationality who have been convicted of serious terrorist offences committed in and against the UK who retain their British citizenship. No minister has ever moved to deprive them of it, and I don't see the people who applaud the deprivation of Begum clamouring for White convicted terrorists to be treated in the same way. I think I know why.

Well, my opinion is you can fcuk off with the faux patriotism.

Too many people on here only talk positive about the country when it's a conduit to complaining about other nationalities or cultures.

@Peregrinus I hate to say it, but the motivation for this seems to be primarily racism.

Unless your suggesting only Africans commit crimes here then that could be viewed as Racist ,

But as it stands close to 17% of the prison population here are foreign nationals,from all over the world ,

I personally have been saying it for years it you come here to commit crimes you should be removed it doesn't matter if your American , Canadian , European , eastern European ,Asia and Africa,

If you cannot live within our society and our laws then you don't deserve to stay here , other countries including in Europe deport foreign criminals we don't ,but tax payers then have to fund their welfare , legal bills and prison stays ,

Get yourself a prison sentence and face immediate deportation on completion or several years in .it's as simple as that ,it's has absolutely nothing to do with skin colour

Any form of citizenship outside of being born here is granted, and as such should also be able to be revoked. Yes, it's a much bigger issue, but the point stands.

As I asked you yesterday - my daughter was born ourside Ireland, while my son was born inside Ireland. They both have dual citizenship - Irish and the country where my daughter was born (and where her mother is from). Do you really think that my daughter's citizenship should be revocable while my son's should not?

And take two Irish-born people who have a child in say London, then move back to Ireland and have another child in say Dublin. Do you really think that the London-born child and the Dublin-born child should have effectively different levels of citizenship (in terms of revocability of that citizenship)?

If so, what distinction do you make between the two to justify this different treatment? Is it based on anything other than the place of birth?

Read the thread. I didn't introduce Africa.

That's "claimed " to be discrimination claimed is the key word

i think most people would be happy if criminals like this were stripped of assets up to the value of their frauds then deported , no need to burden us the cost of jailing them.

the same should apply to irish criminals abroad , traveller gangs in europe , drug gangs in spain or dubi etc

is a condition of being in Ireland not to abide by its laws , and reference made to the same in the oath of citizenship ?

you can keep your race card in your pocket pal , as usual no need for it here

Where would there original citizenship go exactly,

Did it get lost coming off the plane ?

Lol.