McDowell publishes bill on citizenship
Wednesday, 29 September 2004 19:19
The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, has published the bill implementing the decisions ratified in the citizenship referendum in June.
The bill means that a non-national child will only be given citizenship if one of the parents has been lawfully resident in the country for three out of the four years before the child's birth.
Publishing the bill, Mr McDowell said it was the final nail in the coffin for the 'passports for sale' issue.
The Residents Against Racism group says thousands of Irish children and their families are threatened with deportation, even though most of the affected couples have children who are Irish citizens.
Meanwhile, Mr McDowell has said he is not satisfied that speed cameras being used by gardaí were suffering technical problems.
Nearly half the images taken by the cameras were unusable.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Mr McDowell said that if the gardaí needed new equipment then they should ask for it.
