Ireland's voters look set to approve a constitutional amendment removing the automatic right to citizenship for babies born in the country to foreign nationals, early results showed Saturday.

With just under nine percent of the vote counted, almost 80 percent of the ballots were in favour of restricting citizenship, according to figures on the Irish government's election result Internet site.

The measure, if passed, will remove the previous entitlement of all babies born in Ireland or Northern Ireland to Irish citizenship, regardless of where their parents come from.

The change has been prompted by the growth of co-called "passport tourists" -- people in search of a nationality for their child that gives them rights across the whole European Union.