My contribution will be very brief. I welcome the Bill. While it is a short Bill I am satisfied that it is an important one. It is a pity we did not have an explanatory memorandum. While I welcome the Bill I am not sure that its speedy passage through the House is all that critical. Perhaps there are other areas to which we should give priority.
Anyone concerned with the status of women would welcome developments in this area. As a member of the Joint Committee on Women's Rights I have a particular interest. The members of the committee are totally dedicated in this area. There are many areas in which there is discrimination. We have people who are very helpful and who come before the committee and, at the same time, we have people who resent this and who do not give the help and encouragement one would expect.
On Second Stage we are talking about the background to the Bill and I am in order to refer in passing to the religion situation in this country. The Minister said in his introductory speech that the Bill is important also in that it is another step in the elimination from our laws of unequal treatment based on sex. I have referred to religion and the difficulty I have with regard to my Church, the Roman Catholic Church. I believe it has done an enormous amount of work for women, in spite of the epistles and the letters of St. Paul in which he said wives should be subject to their husbands and so on. The Roman Catholic religion and the Christian religion have recognised the dignity and the importance of women and are responsible in many ways for the special position of women in our society.
At the same time, the Catholic Church does not allow women to be ordained priests. The seven sacraments are available in certain circumstances to men, but women may only avail of six of them. They may not be ordained under any circumstances. This is a fundamental hindrance in the area of equality for women. This same religion is concerned at present about the referendum, especially in relation to women, yet women may not be ordained priests. There may have been a problem in this regard 2,000 years ago. Nowadays it is very difficult to criticise so many areas. We condemn associations, for example, golf clubs, who do not give equal treatment to men and women. Yet the basic force in our society, the Catholic Church which sets the moral values and the values we should aspire to refuses to do so. It is very difficult to convince many of these associations and groups that women must get total equality in a country where most of the people belong to the Roman Catholic religion and where the Church refuses to confer this equality on women.
In my time women slaved. In the past we have been commended for being a caring society, looking after the old and the infirm. In many cases it was women who were dedicated to doing that. Of course, now they expect more, and very rightly so. This could be regarded as the cause of the problem of unemployment in some ways. If women were content to remain at home as they did in the past and not pursue their talents we would not have the same concern in this area. Women want to develop and use their talents whether they are married or single. This is right and proper.
This morning I heard a short report on the radio regarding women in national schools. They do not get the opportunities that men get to become principals. It referred to the woman in the home, carrying the baby, feeding it with a bottle and waiting for the babysitter. The core of the problem is missed out when men have to make sacrifices. If women are to get equality, men will have to settle for less jobs or even stay at home. When people get married, some kind of an arrangement should be entered into by both partners which sets out their aims and objectives so that they can help one another in this regard. It is very commendable that we should remove discrimination, including class discrimination. It is fair to say men have proved themselves in many situations because women were excluded from them. We are now coming into an area of pluralism and I welcome that.
The question of Irish citizenship, which we are dealing with in this Bill, is very valuable. In Article 40 of the Constitution we are told that: "All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law". When aliens marry an Irish spouse once they become citizens they are entitled to be held equal before the law the same as people who were reared and spent their whole life in Ireland.
The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, is the parent Act. People in the North, the partitioned part of our country, have an automatic right to citizenship and I believe many of them use the facility. We were concerned about the rights of British citizens living here to vote in general elections. We gave them that right. People from the North who are residing here have a right to vote in local elections, but Irish citizens residing in the North do not have that right. When we talk about citizenship, we talk about the kind of Ireland we dream about and hope to build. We want to make it a place in which men and women who marry aliens will want to live and bring up their family. In that regard, we must try to solve the unemployment problem. We must try to solve all our social problems. That is regarded as proper and desirable by all of us.
I welcome the concept of equality for women. At present if an Irish man marries an alien, as termed in the Bill, his wife gets automatic citizenship if she makes a declaration. This is not by virtue of marriage alone. Foreign husbands of Irish citizens do not have the same right. This is regarded as discrimination against women. They do not have the power to confer that right in the same way as men do. There is a three years waiting period from the time of marriage. This was explained by the Minister in her introductory speech and is dealt with in section 3 of the Bill.
With regard to the differentiation referred to by the Minister and which was dealt with by the Council of Europe in 1977 in their recommendations, the Government have been very generous. For example, they recommended:
Not to require for the acquisition of the nationality by the foreign spouse of a national more than five years residence in their territory including not more than three years of residence after the marriage.
The Minister pointed out all the options which were available and the thinking behind them. She said:
The option which the Government has selected is to give a right to citizenship to foreign spouses of Irish nationals provided that the marriage to the Irish citizen is of at least three years duration, that it is subsisting and that the couple are living together as a husband and wife.
It is not necessary to live in Ireland in order to qualify in this regard. The Minister also told us that the Government had decided to give a right of nationality and "it does not necessarily involve residence in Ireland." I fully appreciate that a couple hitherto living in that situation and wanting to come to Ireland, would not be able to get employment precisely because one of them would not be a citizen of this country. That person could not get citizenship without residing here for a specified period of two years. I am glad that vicious circle has been ended.
With regard to facilitating greatly families who wish to return to Ireland, I am not clear if so many will want to, but I hope they will. In relation to the new section which was added in the Dáil, section 7 regarding renouncement of Irish citizenship, the Minister did not refer to this so far as I am aware in her introductory speech and I am wondering why it had to be included or if there are many people who renounce their Irish citizenship? I am not too clear if there is such a thing as dual citizenship or even if a person could be a citizen of more than one, two or three states. If that is the situation, it seems strange that someone would want to renounce their Irish citizenship. There must be a sound reason for doing so. I would like the Minister to refer to it briefly in her reply.
The existing law in this respect is the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956. As law goes 30 years is not a long time. There are very many much older Acts which would need to be updated. Like other Members of the House, I welcome this Bill. It shows concern for the equality of women. I realise that the Government are being urged by the Council of Europe and by the EC commitments in this respect.
In 1985, 513 women acquired citizenship on lodgement of declaration after marriage to Irish citizens, and only 81 men were granted certificates of naturalisation after marriage to Irish women. I am not too sure if it is envisaged that there will be a dramatic change in this area. More husbands will apply for citizenship subsequent to the legislation, if they think it is important and if they have that affinity towards this country, which I hope they will. In any event, they will be able to apply for citizenship more or less straight away, whereas under the 1956 Act they would have to meet the requirement of residence.
The Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Bill, 1985, also highlighted the problems and the inequality in this area. For example, an Irishman could leave his wife in Ireland, go to England and obtain a divorce whereas an Irish wife could not do the same because she would have the domicile of her husband. I am glad that situation has been changed.
Section 2 of the Bill proposes to amend section 7 of the 1956 Act which provides for the granting of citizenship by registration to people of Irish descent. The position seems to be that a person applying for registration in this way would be deemed to have citizenship from birth. The Minister told us that this was the intention of the 1956 Act when it was being drafted. For that reason, it is very important that on Committee Stage we go into all the details on the intent and wording of all of these sections. I suppose this is not a critically important section. It seems strange that there would be a deficiency about it and that the intent could not be described simply. It should not be a difficult job for a draftsman, who goes through so many intricate Bills and details, to miss out on this. It is not of fundamental importance.
The Minister has told us that people of Irish ancestry take out Irish citizenship simply as a safeguard in case their children should ever need a second citizenship in future. We have some statistics in this area relating to one year, 1984-85. When one considers all the bureaucracy involved in these matters, filling forms, making applications and so on, should we not have on file enough information to provide us with statistics to cover any period?
With regard to refugees, I read from time to time, that there are problems at our airports for people who want to come into this country. The general belief is, at least, that we do not help as many as we could and perhaps this would be an appropriate time to do something about that. I merely make this reference in passing.
The Bill will benefit only a fairly limited number of people, as the Minister has stated. While we do not know how many people will avail of these means of becoming citizens, one wonders how welcome they are to do so generally. Is it something that we really welcome? Is there any special advantage to this country apart from the advantages that accrue to them? In effect, are we encouraging it? These are just a few brief thoughts which come to mind.
In conclusion, I welcome anything that would help to bring an end to this discrimination against women. Consequently, I welcome the Bill.