Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

She could never be stripped of her citizenship because she is a citizen by birth. However, if she, like Shamima Begum, was a citizen by naturalisation, then she would have this double jeopardy of being on the one hand a child who was groomed and trafficked into the caliphate and then stripped of her citizenship as a further punishment. Everybody here, myself included, has constituents who are naturalised citizens. I would ask everybody in this House, are you really going to promote and support legislation that will render them with a second-class status as a citizen?

Think about how this House came into being. The 1916 Rising took place during some of the biggest offensives in the First World War - the battles of the Somme. Who fought them? It was the United States and the British army. Imagine if Éamon de Valera had been stripped of his US citizenship by participating in an armed insurrection against America's allies here in Dublin. What would have happened to Éamon de Valera if he had been stripped of his US citizenship for participating in what they would have described as a terrorist act at the height of the offensives on the Somme? I am sure Senator McDowell could tell us. He would have been executed. When you strip somebody of their citizenship, it is not just an administrative act; it is a punitive act. Why would this House support the idea of a punitive act against any of our citizenry? I draw no distinction between a fellow citizen by virtue of accident of birth or by virtue of naturalisation.

On this idea of fidelity to the State, I swore a solemn oath of allegiance to uphold the Constitution and to be loyal to the State as a commissioned officer. Last Sunday, if I had supported England in the finals, would I have been guilty of a failure in my fidelity and loyalty to the State? That is a facile facetious question but it begs the question, what precisely does that mean? For example, should all Members of the Oireachtas swear a solemn oath of allegiance to uphold the Constitution and to always and exclusively act in the public interest, and if a Minister was found to have acted in a manner that was not consistent with the public interest, they should be recused? That is what we are asking of citizens by virtue of naturalisation only. In the absence of an oath of allegiance to the Constitution, we have no definition whatsoever of what constitutes fidelity to the State. As was pointed out by Senator Ruane, does voicing criticism against public policy or participating in, for example, a demonstration in the city centre for the interests of an entity such as Kurdistan or Rafah mean you could be associated with something that was inimical to the interests of the State? At present, periodically we have convoys of cars being driven around Ireland by people of Russian origin who are naturalised Irish citizens and they sometimes protest in favour of Putin's criminal invasion of Ukraine. Should they be stripped of their citizenship for their lack of fidelity to the State and their outrageous and offensive views?

Many of the concerns raised by IHREC, by the Immigrant Council of Ireland and by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties are well founded. The Minister would never act outside of the public interest and would always act with absolute integrity, but how do we know in a future administration that might be the case? This carries with it the risk of being a very oppressive instrument in the wrong hands and it could be remedied if there had been sufficient pre-legislative scrutiny. It is being rushed. It is poorly drafted. It will de facto create a second tier of citizenship. Do those dynamics not sound similar to us? When questions like this are put to the public by way of referendum, we know the Irish public reject things that are poorly thought out. As a House, we have a duty. It behoves us to robustly challenge this legislation.

I ask the Minister to consider it. The five categories are the ad hoc nature of the proposed procedures for revocation and the procedures for appeal. For example, it may be chaired by a retired judge and two ordinary members. The Minister has discretion over who is appointed and absolute discretion in the architecture of that appeals procedure. That is inappropriate.

On the absence of safeguards against statelessness, the Minister may decide to revoke citizenship here or strip somebody of their Irish citizenship on the basis they might have Syrian citizenship or they might previously have had Russian citizenship or what have you, but that could be a death sentence to return them to those jurisdictions. While the Minister says it would never be the intention of the State to render somebody stateless, as in the case of Shamima Begum, it would in effect lead to that impact on a person.

On concerns relating to existing grounds for revocation, I have rehearsed that. I agree that, where someone's citizenship is obtained through fraud or where a person has failed to meet the necessary residency requirements, it should be open to revocation, but where a person has failed in their duty of fidelity to the State is not only a vague but a bizarre assertion. It comes from the 1950s and that is where it belongs.That idea does not belong in the 21st century. It is also highly problematic where the citizen concerned is also a citizen of a country with which Ireland is at war. We are aware of very publicised cases of what happened to German and Japanese citizens who found themselves in the United States and could not return to those jurisdictions. In most cases, having their citizenship revoked would effectively have been a death sentence.

I agree with Senator Ruane that this Bill risks the perception of two-tier citizenship. It would de facto create two tiers of citizenship status. A former member of Óglaigh na hÉireann who, by accident of birth, is an Irish citizen could do whatever the hell he or she wants and commit the most egregious of crimes without the risk of losing citizenship whereas every person in this country who is here by way of naturalisation would constantly be in fear and have at the back of their mind the question of what fidelity to the State constitutes and whether they could lose their citizenship.