TD says referendum result justifies remarks

Fianna Fáil TD Mr Noel O'Flynn said yesterday he had been vindicated by the result of the citizenship referendum.

In an impassioned speech to the Dáil, the Cork North-Central TD said he had been publicly berated and demonised for his comments two years ago about abuses of Ireland's citizenship laws.

"Members all know I was vilified publicly for airing this view in this House and in the media in January 2002. My views have been decisively proven to be an accurate reflection of the national viewpoint," he said, adding that it had been a time of "great personal pressure from unrelenting attacks".

He said: "I was berated by very vocal interest groups which denounced what they described as my racist and bigoted views when I spoke out on the abuse of our hospitality by some illegal immigrants. I never uttered a word which could be interpreted as racist. They said I was out of touch with the public.

"Time has proven that those groups are well able to express themselves, but it has also shown that they are capable of seriously misinterpreting the public mind," he said of the referendum, backed by 81 per cent of voters, which ended the automatic entitlement to Irish citizenship of any child born in Ireland.

Speaking during the ongoing debate on the Irish Naturalisation and Citizenship Bill, Mr O'Flynn said "the terms of the Bill will be welcomed by the citizens of this country. They are fair, just and non-discriminatory."

The Cork deputy added that the Nigerian embassy had accused bogus Nigerian asylum seekers of making "terrible and unfounded allegations against their country of origin in order to stay in Ireland at all costs. Incidentally, 'bogus' is a familiar word which the Minister [for Justice] has used many times and for which nobody has vilified him, even though I was when I used the word two years."

But his party colleague Mr John McGuinness (FF, Carlow-Kilkenny) said that "we must sometimes question the message sent out by embassies if we are to strike a balance in the system between the Government or whatever is in place in the countries from where these people have fled".

Mr McGuinness stressed his support for the referendum and the Government's efforts. He said all the ethnic groups he worked with in Kilkenny "fully understood, long before they came to Ireland, that there was an easy way to gain Irish citizenship, and that is why they arrived on these shores".

Equally, "they expected the Irish Government to take some stand on the practice in which they were engaged and that, at some stage, it would be brought to an end". However, he said there was "next to nothing in regard to an immigration policy and the system operated at present by the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) lacks humanity and compassion".

The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, had stated the need for an immigration policy, but "what is required is action, which must be based on our experience with the RIA and the system in operation.

It is wrong to hold 60 women from different ethnic groups without any support, in a place close to my constituency. It is wrong to ask a group of 90 men and women to go through the process laid down by the Department without proper assistance."