Citizenship loophole is damaging credibility of entire asylum system

A Yes vote in the referendum will give us the chance to devise a better immigration policy, argues Paul Cullen

A few months ago, I was in Amman, Jordan, and met a Lebanese man who was about to travel over land to Baghdad on a business trip. Understandably nervous, he told me he had one comfort should anything go wrong: "At least my son is Irish, thanks to the kind laws in your country."

The man described travelling with his pregnant wife to Dublin for a holiday last year. On learning that citizenship was conferred automatically on any child born here, the couple decided to extend their stay until his wife gave birth.

His son's purple passport was just insurance in his back pocket and might never be used, he emphasised.

As a contribution to the debate on citizenship tourism, my story is minor enough. Just as a single swallow does not make a summer, a single anecdotal case does not make for a flood of "citizenship tourists".

Except that I do not believe that such cases are isolated. Like the masters of the Dublin maternity hospitals and the Minister for Justice, I cannot bring to this debate conclusive statistics broken down by nationality, place of residence, time to delivery date, and so on - thankfully, our midwives and obstetricians have better things to be doing.

However, from years of talking to people working with asylum-seekers and non-nationals themselves, it is clear to me that our citizenship laws are a key "pull" factor for would-be immigrants.

And they have been for some time. In 1999, a year after the signing of the Good Friday agreement, I wrote a pamphlet, "Refugees and Asylum-seekers in Ireland". For its sympathetic portrayal of asylum-seekers and its criticisms of the Department of Justice, I harvested a small collection of poison-pen letters, minor threats and racist insults.

The green-pen writers clearly didn't make it to the second last page of the book, where I wrote: "The Department of Justice will also have to address the thorny issue of citizenship. There is ample evidence that the provision in the Constitution that bestows Irish citizenship on all persons born here is being abused."

I went on to suggest that a constitutional amendment might be needed before legislation to deal with the issue could be introduced.

That was written five years ago, yet the current referendum debate is still hearing claims that the issue is a recent phenomenon.

The debate has also heard calls for a comprehensive immigration system. Yet an integral part of such a system is a clear, just and enforceable set of laws. They must command popular support and include meaningful sanctions, including the threat of deportation.

If our rules on citizenship or asylum are not widely respected and followed, they will not hold any credibility with the broader population. To see what happens when loopholes are left untouched, just look at the series of scandals in the taxation system over recent years.

For some time, the fiction was perpetuated that all asylum-seekers coming here were actually fleeing persecution rather than seeking work. The result was a credibility gap which impacted negatively and undeservedly on all immigrants.

No doubt there was an element of racism (a much overused term) in attitudes to asylum-seekers, but many people were merely expressing a healthy scepticism about this misdescription of a section of the population.

Now, it seems to me, some people wish to perpetuate a new fiction; namely, that all women who come to Ireland to have children have an intrinsic link to the country. From Mrs Chen on, this is palpably untrue, and the result will again be to tar a broader group of non-nationals unfairly with the same brush.

A child born to an immigrant couple who have been here four years but choose to return home to their wider family for the delivery is not automatically entitled to Irish citizenship. In contrast, a woman who arrives for the first time in Ireland in the later stages of pregnancy has citizenship conferred on her child even if she opts to take the next plane home.

This doesn't seem right. Irish citizenship matters to me, and I feel demeaned when it is abused. Political rights, of which citizenship is one, should be graduated; this is why we impose age and residency requirements before allowing people to vote. If they are to have any value, they also need to be earned, by ourselves or our parents.

Admittedly, for a long time, this loophole didn't really matter. People didn't move around so much, and there was little incentive to come to Ireland.

That has all changed. Ireland is an economic magnet; international travel is more affordable; and other ways of moving to the West have dried up. Meanwhile, all our European neighbours differ from us in their citizenship laws. It's not the way they differ that matters, simply the fact that they do; any discontinuity inevitably has an effect on immigration flows.

None of these factors look like changing in the near future, so it follows that a small, open country such as Ireland needs a responsive immigration policy that can adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

That means rules enshrined in legislation rather than in the Constitution (where, incidentally, the birth rule has only been included since 1998).

I would like to see this country develop a comprehensive, pro-active immigration system, based on a principle of enlightened self-interest. We should, for example, develop a Green Card system to encourage immigration where the economy needs it; we should actively seek to rescue refugees from crisis situations, whether it be Rafah camp in Palestine or Darfur, Sudan; and we should give immigrants a stake in society commensurate to the time they have spent here.

But none of this makes any sense if citizenship is given, in an uncontrolled and unquantifiable way, to the Irish-born children of anyone who can stump up the airfare to Dublin.

What would you do if you were in their position?, a friend who is voting No asks me.

"Exactly the same," I can only respond; if I were seeking a better life for myself and my family, I would use every provision and loophole available to gain a toehold in a prosperous country such as Ireland.

However, this isn't the point. My Lebanese acquaintance showed foresight in seeing that his son was born in Ireland, but it isn't our job to facilitate him. Irish people do have a duty to share the fruits of their wellbeing, but this should be informed by clear, just rules and take place in a manner which we determine.

Paul Cullen is an Irish Times staff correspondent who has written extensively on immigration issues