Non-national birth data delay angers Rabbitte

Figures released today show that 4,249 babies were born to non-Irish mothers in Dublin's three maternity hospitals last year.

The majority of non-Irish women giving birth were from Nigeria, with  1,528 babies being registered as having Nigerian mothers. A total of 631 babies were born to British mothers, 470 to Romanian women, 241 babies had Chinese mothers and 236 were born to women from the Phillipines.

There were also large numbers of women from the US, Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan and other African countries. Mothers from almost every country in the enlarged European Union also gave birth in Ireland last year.

In Holles Street, 6,566 Irish mothers gave birth, compared to 1,812 non-nationals. In the Rotunda, of the 6,789 babies born in 2003, 1,105 were to non-Irish mothers. There were a total of 1,708 births to non-nationals in the Coombe.

The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said he had received the figures this morning in a letter from the Eastern Regional Health Authority. The letter came as a response to a question he submitted in March to the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, seeking the nationality of mothers giving birth in Dublin hospitals.

The letter was posted by the ERHA on June 11th, the day the citizenship referendum was held.

Mr Rabbitte accused the Government of being "cynical" in deliberately withholding the information he had requested until after the vote was held. "It's typical of the lack of accountability and the way that elected members of Dáil Éireann are treated by this government," he told RTÉ news. "It was this arrogance that got them their comeuppance in the election."

However, the ERHA said in a statement the question from Mr Rabbitte was "one of over a thousand routine parliamentary questions and public representations dealt with by the authority each year". It said the information sought was not routinely collected or held, but every effort was made to compile and verify it as soon as possible. "There was no intention to delay sending this information to Deputy Rabbitte," the ERHA insisted.

Inclusion of nationality in hospital birth records only became mandatory in 2001. The mother's normal country of residence is not required to be recorded by hospitals.

The Labour leader said the "sole" reason put forward by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, for holding the citizenship referendum was the difficulty being faced by the Dublin maternity hospitals in coping with the influx of non-Irish mothers.

The Dáil question was an attempt to establish the extent of the problem, Mr Rabbitte said. "All the facts and figures would have been of very great interest to the public...trying to work out what way they might vote in the referendum," he said.

He insisted the figures, which show an average of 12 non-EU births in each of the three Dublin maternity hospitals each day, would not have bolstered Mr McDowell's argument for the referendum. He insisted problems at these hospitals were caused by Government underfunding.