Unless they make the declaration "in the prescribed manner," they shall no longer be considered as Irish citizens—that is the purport of Section 7. I am just asking the question: is this wise?
In relation to that, I should also like to ask the Minister whether there is any time limit for this declaration? We are going to allow the people in the Six Counties to declare themselves as Irish and to become Irish citizens by a simple declaration, but there is no reference to a time limit. We do not say "you must do it within a year or two years or ten years of the passing of this Act," so that it would be possible for a person to be considered by us as an alien, or as a British subject, and perhaps 25 years later for him suddenly to make this application and declare himself Irish. I just wonder whether the Minister has considered the question of a time limit and of a date and whether he has considered just what the full implications of the seventh section are, and whether the clauses do not in fact allow a lot of potential Irish citizens, as it were, to opt out.
That is the main point I want to make, but there are two or three other sections to which I want to make at least passing reference. One is Section 15, paragraph (d). I notice that a person applying for naturalisation has to have one year's continuous residence in the State immediately before the date of his application, and to have been a total of four years here in the eight years preceding that. I cannot help wondering whether the period of one year's continuous residence as a basic requirement is not just a little short. A person can qualify to become Irish by having just one year's continuous residence. Admittedly, he will have had to spend four years off and on in the preceding eight years in the State, but I still wonder whether the one year is not, perhaps, in this case over-generous.
The next point I want to make is in relation to Section 19. Section 19 allows the Minister to revoke a certificate of naturalisation for various reasons, if he thinks it has been fraudulently acquired for instance, and I do not think anybody could object to revocation in that case, but, also, if the person "by any overt act has showed himself to have failed in his duty of fidelity to the nation and loyalty to the State." I cannot help wondering whether that phrase, although it sounds all right when you read it there, might not be capable of, shall we say, ungenerous interpretation in certain political contexts, to deprive a person, who quite justifiably had got Irish naturalisation, of his citizenship. In other words, is it not rather a weapon, a club, held over the heads of the naturalised citizen, which might prevent him in fact even from adhering to certain political parties in the country, if a narrow view was to be taken of what is his "duty of fidelity to the nation"? In other words, are we not, by such a section as this, instituting something that looks like second-class citizenship, because I think I am right in saying that it would take rather more in the case of an Irish citizen, Irish by birth, to have him deprived of his citizenship rights than simply to say that he had shown himself to have failed in his duty of fidelity to the nation!
There are many young men about whom that might be stated, and has been stated, by different political parties and yet I think one would hesitate to say that they deserve to be deprived of their Irish citizenship. In the case of naturalised citizenship this, apparently, is going to take place, and I suggest that the implication of this section is to institute a second-class citizenship and not, in fact, to give full citizenship to those who have fulfilled the requirements for naturalisation. I would deplore that attitude. I have no objection to the qualifications for naturalisation being made fairly difficult, but I do feel that, once they have been fulfilled, the naturalised person, except in the case of his having fraudulently acquired that certificate, should have full citizenship rights of which he cannot be deprived any more than any other citizen.
I notice that in sub-section (5) of Section 19 there is the right to revoke a certificate of naturalisation, and so on, and the person concerned "shall cease to be an Irish citizen". I should like to ask two questions in relation to that. Does such a naturalised citizen who loses his citizenship in this way become a Stateless person? Has the Minister considered just what is the status, the international status, of a person who loses Irish citizenship through losing this certificate of naturalisation? I would presume, by that certificate of naturalisation, that he already has forfeited the citizenship of the country from which he came. What happens when he loses our citizenship? Does he become a Stateless person?
We have noticed elsewhere in the Bill that the children of a naturalised person become naturalised also in certain circumstances. What happens to them when such a naturalised person loses his certificate? Do they remain Irish, and do they remain Irish even if he has acquired his certificate fraudulently? These are matters on which I am not quite clear and on which I would appreciate hearing the Minister's views.
Section 26 provides that where the Government are satisfied that,
"under the law of another country Irish citizens enjoy in that country some or all of the rights and privileges of a citizen of that country the Government may by Order declare that citizens of that country shall enjoy in the State similar citizenship rights and privileges to those enjoyed by Irish citizens in that country."
What exactly has the Minister in mind there? Earlier to-day we were dealing with a situation in which we were being pretty ruthlessly nationalistic in demanding that when a tea wholesale company wanted to get a licence, not merely did they have to have the majority of the owners Irish but every single share in the company had to be "in the beneficial ownership of Irish citizens." Had the Minister in mind to make concessions to British subjects, or American citizens, or the citizens of any other State, and, if so, along what lines?