Anti Amendment Links

by Chunky monkey Tue Jun 08, 2004 18:50

Sean has proven himself to be an ill informed twat and to worsen it he then talks about a 3 or 4 to 1 victory for yes. Not likely ! however just because something is voted in doesn't mean its right. Take Nazi Germany for instance

by Sean Dowling Mon Jun 07, 2004 21:51

Meehan gives us the piece by this woman Boyd (who is she anyway ?) but doesn't give us the text of the other speaker. Why not ?

Boyd quoted US Congressman Morrison. What right does a US Congressman have to intervene in a debate on the constitution of a foreign country ? Yankee Go Home ! What a cheek this guy has. Would we tell Americans to change or not change their Constitution ? And please, don't whine about the illegal immigrant Irish in the US. I have no sympathy for them if they are breaking the immigration laws there.

Anyway, hope I don't sound angry. Actually I'm in great from, looking forward to a 3 to 1 majority for YES on Friday. Maybe even 4 to 1 ? To quote Molly Bloom Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes etc.

by John Meehan Mon Jun 07, 2004 18:30

Róisín Boyd broadcast the following opinion piece on the 5-7 Live Programme, RTÉ Radio , on Wednesday June 2 last.

Citizenship referendum 57 Live Draft 3


Recently I heard the well-known accountant Des Peelo being interviewed on radio, about the banking scandals. When he was asked whether or not the situation was as dire as it seemed. He recalled the wise words of his old friend Charlie Haughey. Mr Haughey advised him, he said, to always remember that ‘Politics is all about perception. It’s not about reality.’ It looks like that lesson has been well learnt by our politicians by Mr Haughey’s heirs as it were – both in Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats.
Certainly it applies to this citizenship referendum. Let’s remember how this all began The Minister for Justice Michael McDowell told us that he’d met the Masters of the three maternity hospitals and he said that they had implored him to implement constitutional change because the wards were swamped with non-national mothers jumping off the plane just in time to give birth.
The Masters said they had asked for no such thing. But the seeds had been sown. The perception that Irish maternity hospitals were in imminent danger of collapse solely due to the numbers of immigrant mothers coming here to give birth was now firmly entrenched in the public arena. These mothers we were told come here purely to gain Irish citizenship for their babies. The reality turned out to be quite different. The actual numbers of women arriving to give birth out of the blue was quite small and it turns out that half of the late comers to the hospitals were actually Irish.
The perception encouraged is that asylum-seeking mothers are clogging up the maternity hospitals and living off the fat of the land. Again the reality is somewhat different.
Doctors Jo Murphy Lawless and Patricia Kennedy who undertook research for a report into the maternity needs of refugee and asylum seeking women say:
‘ These women have special needs. They have undertaken extremely long journeys, while close to the end of their pregnancies, and as a result are vulnerable physically at least as much as emotionally. What you see here are people absolutely frantic to get a future for their children.’
And this is how they describe the experience of one new mother. ‘ An African woman with a three-week old baby and a toddler huddled in a small bedroom of a 2 bedroom apartment. In the living area was a couple with a child and six male visitors. This woman had conceived when raped in her own country. She was now sharing an apartment with a family she had never met before.’ The authors point out that these women come into the Irish maternity system when they have already experienced of profound loss….thus if Irish maternity services are to be responsive to women they need to know what specific difficulties women encounter when they give birth in a foreign culture.’


Misinformation is always corrosive. It allows fear to breed and distrust to fester. It allows us too to harden our hearts. Instead of condemning women with the facile term ‘citizenship tourist’ we need to be asking what makes women undertake such risks. Let’s remember whom we are talking about here. Women in the final stages of pregnancy. Women who are often travelling alone to a strange and sometimes hostile environment. Anyone in their right mind knows that this is not a good situation. But desperate people make desperate decisions. That is what we should be looking at before we make this fundamental change to our Constitution.
The perception being given is that this is simple loophole brought about by the Good Friday Agreement. That this is a loophole that can be tweaked by a referendum. This is not the case. We are being asked to make a profound change to the fundamental issue of how Irish citizenship is granted. In the course of doing that we are scapegoating one of the most vulnerable groups in Ireland today, immigrant women and children. I don’t want to make a decision that is informed by Minister Michael McDowell’s vague and somewhat ominous assertion that ‘anyone with eyes can identify the problem.’
Before we make any such radical change to the Irish Constitution I want to hear the stories of migrant women aired in a suitable environment. Somewhere like the Oireachteas Committee on the Constitution. I want to hear the views of the Philipino nurses who prop up our nursing homes, our general hospitals and yes our maternity hospitals. I want to know what they want for their children born in this country. I want to hear the Minister for Justice too. I want to hear the parties in the North give their views. I want to know what are the implications for the Good Friday Agreement. Before I can agree to a fundamental change and it is a fundamental change to the Constitution I want to hear the issues discussed with all those who will be affected by the change and by our legislators. Then and only then will I be able to make a decision based on reality. Not one based on conjecture and perception.
.
Take the story of Salome Bugua who came to live in Ireland from Kenya after marrying her Irish husband. She started work with the homeless in Dublin.She was delighted when she became pregnant with the couple’s first child three years ago. But soon she told me she felt forced to hide her pregnancy because of racist insults directed at her when she went out. She was spat at and coins were thrown at her in the street. She is in no doubt that negative media coverage about non-national mothers contributed in no small way to her experience.



No one denies that our immigration legislation needs reform. It is outmoded and derives from the British model which itself originates from the 30’s, when the British establishment wanted to prevent too many Jews who were fleeing Nazi Germany, from coming into the country. This hastily called referendum is not the appropriate way to reform our immigration legislation.
It feels like we’ve come a long way from the glorious days when we voted in the Republic, to give up Articles 2 and 3 in exchange for peace and giving everyone born on this island the right to be Irish. That was a time when we opened psychological and physical borders .It seems shabby and mean minded to go back on that promise now. And we should heed the words of Senator Bruce Morrison when he warned that this referendum could encourage people to ‘exercise their worst instincts about newcomers rather than their best.’

by John Meehan Mon Jun 07, 2004 18:14

Imaginative and to the point - a great initiative!

by redjade Mon Jun 07, 2004 16:00

Ciaran Cuffe (Green TD) & Colm Mac Eochaid (Fine Gael Barrister) launch campaign to oppose Referendum

by Basil Fawlty Mon Jun 07, 2004 15:18

Ireland is safe.
________________________________
Strong Yes to citizenship vote shown in poll


The Government's proposal to remove the automatic right of citizenship from Irish children of non-national parents is on course to be approved comfortably, according to the results of an Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent.

Some 57 per cent will vote in favour of the constitutional amendment next Friday, the poll shows, up three points from the Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll taken last month. Just 22 per cent will vote against, down 2 points, with 21 per cent having no opinion.

The poll was conducted last Tuesday and Wednesday among a national quota sample of 2,000 voters throughout all constituencies in the State. Although it was taken 10 days before polling, the clear margin in favour shows the Government in a strong position to succeed in its aim of restricting the automatic citizenship rights of children born on the island of Ireland to those with at least one parent who has been lawfully resident in Ireland for three of the previous four years.

by Eoin O'Mahony - Campaign Against the Racist Referendum - CARR Tue Jun 01, 2004 21:32 087 2906851

CARR's website is at

www.activelink.ie/carr

Resources
Articles
Press statements
Contact details, and
How to help

by Anonymous Tue Jun 01, 2004 20:39

A little glimpse of where McDowell and the PD's are coming from. Taken from his website under "Policies" (at end of page):-

http://www.michaelmcdowell.ie/

"In the last five years Ireland created 400,000 new jobs; unemployment has grown to record levels in member states which share same currency and interest rates. Why?

Don’t Let a Left/Green Coalition Destroy Our jobs, our future, our success

The key to our success has been building on our strengths - pro-enterprise, low tax policies coupled with competitive partnership economics.

If we abandon our success proven policies there will be a return to MASS UNEMPLOYMENT AND EMIGRATION

A Left/Green influence in Government will destroy confidence, investment & jobs.

Quality of Life needs a successful economic base; fewer resources mean Social Injustice"


Though I disagree with his assessment - under a global market and global capitalism as we all currently live in - his arguments are not without merit and certainly can not be considered to be in cloud cuckoo land.

by ec Tue Jun 01, 2004 17:50

25/05/04

Don’t be swayed by Michael McDowell’s scare tactics
By Fergus Finlay
SO, if we had passed Michael McDowell’s referendum, we’d have stopped the little baby Chen from becoming an Irish citizen?
And because we haven't passed it yet, we're going to be overrun by thousands, maybe millions, of little babies with yellow skin and names like Chen? Doesn't the Chen judgment, about which we were bombarded all last week, prove that Michael McDowell was right all along?
Not true on any count.
Mind you, that didn't stop Michael McDowell from issuing a statement in the aftermath of the Chen opinion claiming, as usual, total vindication, and quoting the opinion entirely out of context to try, wrongly, to suggest that the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice supported his referendum.

One of the most remarkable features of the Chen case (the baby's name is Catherine, by the way, and she is about four years of age by now) is that even after passage of the referendum, she would have been entitled to full citizenship of Ireland, assuming the Government keeps its promises (always a big assumption, I know).
Why? Because what the Government has said is this. If we vote for the referendum, they're going to bring in a new law on citizenship. And they have already published the bill they're proposing to enact you can read it on the Department of Justice's website.
Section 6 (3) of that proposed new Act says, "A person born in the island of Ireland is an Irish citizen from birth if he or she is not entitled to citizenship of any other country." That section is designed to honour Ireland's international obligations to stateless people.
But when you read the facts of Catherine Chen's case, that is exactly what she is, or would be if she didn't qualify for Irish citizenship.
In paragraph 14 of the opinion from the European Court of Justice, it is made clear that Catherine Chen was not recognised as a national of the United Kingdom. In paragraph 21 it is clear that she is not recognised as a national of China, because China has a one-child rule. (That's one of the reasons that orphanages in China are full of abandoned babies. If Catherine's mother had gone home to China when she discovered she was pregnant, as presumably the supporters of our referendum would have wished, she would have been expected to have an abortion). So even if Catherine were born after the referendum, and after the new law had come into effect, she would still qualify as an Irish citizen because (like many other countries) we offer that protection to stateless persons who are born here.
But assume for a moment that wasn't the case.
Suppose Catherine was the first child of her parents, and could have qualified as a Chinese national. Will there be thousands of other parents from China and elsewhere trying to qualify for free movement throughout Europe by conferring Irish citizenship on their newborn babies? Not if they read the opinion issued by the Advocate General (and if his opinion is upheld by the full European Court of Justice).
He makes it clear that the right to free movement applies to people who have sufficient resources to avoid becoming a burden on the country they are in. Free movement of persons within the European Union is still quite severely limited. It is designed that way to prevent people who live in one country deciding that the social welfare system of another is better than theirs, or moving from country to country to take advantage of, say, free healthcare or third-level education. So the notion that thousands of poor people will arrive in Ireland to have their babies, just so those babies can give them the right to live wherever they like in the European Union, is absurd.
In other words, it's of a piece with some of the earlier scare stories put out by Michael McDowell and the Government, and now quietly abandoned.
Remember how we were told in the beginning that some of the maternity hospitals were being overrun, and that the senior people in those hospitals had pleaded with the Minister for Justice to do something about the law? That was a wild exaggeration. In fact, remarkably, it transpires that most of the pressure being suffered by maternity hospitals is not caused by extra babies, but by Government cutbacks.
There has been a significant drop in the number of births in Ireland in the last 20 years, and a significant drop in the number of nights a mother stays in hospital while having a baby. As a consequence, the number of "birth nights" in Ireland's maternity hospitals has more than halved since 1980.
And yet they are suffering undeniable pressure not caused, as I said, by extra babies at all.
LIKE a lot of previous referendum campaigns, this one is full of scare stories based on untruths. And most of the scare stories are coming from people who are trying to make us afraid. Some day, I suspect, Michael McDowell will regret his role in trying to lead a campaign based on the politics of fear.
Or maybe not. He had a long article in one of the Sunday newspapers the other day on his other favourite subject.
In the course of it he said, "Those of us who are Republican, who know the meaning of the term, must stand by the Republic which we have created... it is not only democratically elected politicians who must stand by the Republic that is also the duty of the other organs of our democracy, particularly our media who have shown that they can be effective and courageous in defence of our democracy when they really want to be. It is a duty also cast on every single citizen who, as a citizen, owes a fundamental political duty of loyalty to the State, a State which has one Army, one police force, one system of justice, one parliament, one Government and which acknowledges one source of political legitimacy the free and democratic sovereign will of the Irish people and the democratic institutions created by, and answerable to, the Irish people."
Coming from Michael McDowell, that has a frightening ring to it.
Fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State are fundamental political duties of all citizens that's what it says in our Constitution and I believe in it. But that loyalty, in McDowell's terms, must be extended to the "one Government" he sees at the centre of the State.
It couldn't be more wrong, or more dangerous. Governments must earn their loyalty, not demand it. And they must earn it week after week. The last time I looked, this was not just a republic but a democratic one. In a democracy, the most fundamental political right is the right to disagree indeed, the duty to disagree if conscience tells you so.
In the name of that duty, and because of the motivation behind this referendum and the half-truths and distortions used to bolster a moth-eaten case, I say we should profoundly disagree with McDowell's approach. We shouldn't just vote no we should shout it from the rooftops.

by ec Tue Jun 01, 2004 17:27

Dr Chris Neilson of the Irish Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Survivors accused Justice Minister Michael McDowell of being “very, very racist” and claimed the Government was setting up an “apartheid regime”.

Full article from Examiner at link:

by Anonymous Tue Jun 01, 2004 16:09

(Nice one "1" of imc irl.)

IN GENERAL:-
--------------------

An information docket on the referendum can obviously be downloaded from. This just gives what the referendum is and what it is about:-

http://www.refcom.ie/RefCom/real/ref.nsf/PageCurrent/HomePageNotes?OpenDocument

I do not understand why they do not put down all the pro's and con's here or at least provide some links. This same docket was posted into everyone’s house. Again the opportunity was badly missed to give the, normally uninformed electorate, a summary of the arguments been put forward by the Yes and No camps, and who are these camps in the first place. The media are currently reporting, surprise surprise, confusion among the electorate over the referendum.

I think current polls are saying the referendum will be passed by a 2:1 majority which is what I would expect the result to be (roughly), given peoples ultimately selfish outlook in life.


Some YES links:-
------------------------

The case for a YES vote. From the PD website:-

http://www.progressivedemocrats.ie/citizenship_referendum.pdf?PHPSESSID=398da3b4b1221d4c619bf0fce37227a5

This is a 49 page Pdf. Document. According to the document it quotes statistics from Office of Personel Management of the US government: “Citizenship Laws of the World” 2001 – which state that there are currently (including our good selves) that there are just currently 43 countries in the world that grant automatic citizenship to children born in a country, though both its parents are non-national of that country. (at end of document)


McDowell address at launch of PD Citiizenship Referendum Campaign:-

http://www.progressivedemocrats.ie/press_room/949/


Some No Links:-
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Had a quick look at the Swp site. A few downloads are available:-

http://www.swp.ie/html/antiracist.htm

Irish Council for Civil Liberties briefing document on Citizenship Referendum (PDF 37K)

Human Rights Commission Preliminary Observations on Citzenship Referendum (PDF 21K)

Download "The Case against McDowell's referendrum" pamphlet meeting here

Download CARR "Vote No to McDowell's Referendum" leaflet

Download CARR "Vote No" leaflet in Arabic

by 1 of imc irl Tue Jun 01, 2004 14:24

from whatever side. Feature will be made up using info in coming couple of days.

by Anonymous Tue Jun 01, 2004 13:38

Last request!

Anyone got any links to the YES campaign, reasons and arguments???

Im sure No is the right way to vote but everyone should be fully informed of both sides of the arguments, as always, before voting.

by f - sp (pc) Mon May 31, 2004 00:49

http://www.socialistparty.net/elections/manifesto.htm#cit

by John Meehan Sun May 30, 2004 21:58

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65292

by John Meehan - CARR Sun May 30, 2004 16:33

Thanks "Tired Editor" - I'ill help as much as possible

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65192

Readers might also like to attend a CARR Public Meeting Next Thursday June 3 in Liberty Hall, Eden Quay, Dublin 1

Speakers :

Ivana Bacilk - lawyers Against the Amendment

Gareth Keogh - Deputy president, Union of Students in ireland

Des Bonass - Dublin Council of Trade Unions

Joanna McMinn - National Women's Council of Ireland

Also, a member of Residents Against Racism

by E - SWP Sat May 29, 2004 18:21 info at swp dot ie

Hi,

the SWP has produced a pamphlet on the case against the referendum

the pamphlet can be read on line at:

http://www.swp.ie/resources/Case%20against%20Citizenship%20Referendum/Table%20of%20Contents.htm

cheers

Citizenship pamphlet

by a tired editor Fri May 28, 2004 23:29

just back from a 2 * 70 hour per week working in real world holiday from being a virtual warrior - time to start tearing down them walls again - please add any other relevant / important links with a short description here

by John Meehan - CARR Fri May 28, 2004 21:58

More Links on the Campaign for a No Vote inthe Citizenship Referendum :

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64196

Could Indymedia Editors consider putting this issue back on the front of the site? There are only two weeks to go to polling day.

by Orla Ni Chomhrai Fri May 28, 2004 19:24

Catherine Kenny will speak at a meeting against the referendum in Galway city next Thursday in the Ballybane Community Centre, Ballybane at 8pm.

by eeekkk Fri May 28, 2004 18:22

.