The Government's reasons for holding a referendum to restrict Irish citizenship rules have been shown to be "bogus", the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Pat Rabbitte has declared.
Speaking at the opening of Labour's annual conference in Dublin, Mr Rabbitte said the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has claimed that foreign births have overwhelmed Irish maternity hospitals.
"We are told there is a crisis \ the people telling us that cannot provide any statistics to tell us the scope of that crisis, or indeed, whether there is a crisis at all, as opposed to a temporary difficulty," said Mr Rabbitte.
However, he pulled back from saying that Labour would oppose the referendum, which is expected to be held in June, on the grounds that Labour first wanted to stop it being held at all.
"We can afford to share our wealth and prosperity with people who are poorer, and we should. But we are also entitled, indeed obliged, to protect ourselves from exploitation and abuse.
"For both of those reasons, Ireland needs an immigration policy. It must be inclusive, decent, and humane.
"It must be colour blind. It must take account of Ireland's needs, including the needs of Ireland's labour market.
"We cannot afford to become a hiding place for anyone who wants to come here for whatever reason. We cannot expect to be able to employ everyone who wants to come.
"But we cannot afford to turn our backs on people who have the skills, the talent, and the hunger to make a better life for themselves here either," he told a joint meeting of Labour's National Executive and Parliamentary Party.
"No country with a history like ours, a history where thousands of Irish people were saved from starvation, where thousands of Irish people were enabled to make a contribution in other economies, can slam the door shut on people who want to come here to make a better life," he said.
There is "a particular irony", in Fianna Fáil's decision to push the referendum since its founder, Eamon De Valera, only escaped execution after the Easter Rising because he had been born in the United States and was thus a US citizen, he said.
But if the Republic "cannot slam the door shut" neither can it leave it wide open: "It is for that reason that we need, as a nation, to address the issue of immigration calmly and rationally," he commented.
The Labour Party will shortly publish updated proposals to reform immigration laws: "It will, I hope, be widely seen as being informed by principles of decency, humanity, and rationality. The Government, he said, is insisting that it will go ahead with "a potentially divisive and damaging" referendum despite the lack of consensus within the Oireachtas.
He said that in 2001, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, withdrew a proposed referendum that would have created a council to adjudicate upon the conduct of judges following "fundamental disagreements" with the Opposition.
"If the separation of powers is a fundamental issue requiring a broad all-party consensus, what could be more fundamental than the issue of what it is, and what it requires, to be an Irish citizen?
"Why is this Government insisting on proceeding with a potentially divisive and damaging referendum in the absence of such a consensus?" Mr Rabbitte asked.
"They are doing it in the hope of making electoral gain from it. Fianna Fáil candidates have already begun to use the issue in their literature and on the doorsteps.
"Fianna Fáil in particular believe that in raising the issue of race, they can in the words of Bruce Morrison encourage people 'to exercise their worst instincts about newcomers rather than their best'.
"The Progressive Democrats, and Michael McDowell in particular, are willing patsies in this exercise," he said.
