Caitriona Ruane (I think that's Katrina to you and me), Sinn Fein's South Down MLA and spokesman on Equality and Human Rights has come out against the government's plans to introduce ID cards. No big surprise here, I mean the idea of the ID cards is to reduce identity fraud and combat terrorism. Turkeys and Christmas really, this is Sinn Fein we're talking about. (On a completely unrelated note, Ms Ruane is the same woman who was campaigning for the release and return to Ireland of the three Irishmen charged with training FARC terrorists in Columbia.)

Follow up:

The Northern Irish Magyar has a great take on this:

"She is worried that those who may not consider themselves to be British in Northern Ireland will also be forced to carry one of these cards, which will have a large photo of the Queen in the middle, with a Union Jack background and the Rangers crest in the corner."

Ruane said "these cards would undermine ... fundamentally the right of people living in the north [sic] to their Irish identity." It seems to me that Ms Ruane and her Sinn Fein colleagues must be quite insecure about their Irishness to feel that carrying a piece of plastic in their pocket/purse makes them somehow less Irish, no?

I haven't heard anywhere that these ID cards will describe the person's nationality as British if they're Irish, nor do I believe that this will be the case. If you're legally Irish then this data would be inaccurate (and therefore you could have it corrected under the Data Protection Act 1998). Ruane's doing nothing more than wrapping herself in her tricolour to boost her popularity.

Interestingly enough, if Ms Ruane and her colleagues at Sinn Fein weren't so bloody minded about not taking their Westminster seats, they'd have 5 extra votes against the ID card scheme, an issue that is contentious and may well be a close run thing! But sure, how can the "people of Ireland" have their interests represented at Westminster, eh Katrina?

As I've stated elsewhere, I'm not sure of the merits of ID cards as a whole. I have no ideological objection to carrying them as I'm of the opinion that if you haven't done anything wrong then you've nothing to hide. That said, I'm not sure whether these identity cards would make much difference to terrorism or identity fraud, but I am open to being persuaded if evidence is available.

UPDATE:
The Belfast Telegraph carried a report on Monday claiming that 76% of people in Northern Ireland support ID cards. They did warn though that "Northern Ireland people wishing to describe themselves as Irish citizens would have to register as foreign nationals, unless the Republic were to introduce ID cards at the same time and the UK Government were to accord it equal recognition."

Sounds a bit unfortunate really, but if you're a non-UK national living in the UK that's legally what you are I suppose.