Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 190: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the way a person (details supplied) in Dublin 6 can obtain the necessary papers to facilitate naturalisation in view of the fact that they were a refugee and had no papers and that as directed they applied to the Congolese embassy in UK and were informed that original documents were required; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46452/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Officials in the Citizenship Division of my Department inform me that there is no record of an application for a certificate of naturalisation having been received from the person concerned.

The position in general is that persons making an application for a certificate of naturalisation are required to provide evidence of their identity. If they do not have their birth certificate or other supporting document, then they should obtain it, so that the State can have equivalent proofs of the identity of naturalised citizens as all other citizens. In rare circumstances where an applicant cannot obtain their birth certificate or other supporting documents for reasons genuinely beyond their control, then the applicant will be required to provide an explanation and submit evidence, such as correspondence from the relevant authorities responsible for the issuing of birth certificates in their country, stating why a birth certificate is not obtainable.

The Citizenship Division will assess those reasons and if satisfied that they provide a genuine impediment, alternative means of validating the true identity of the person will be put in place. I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual Immigration cases may be made direct to INIS by Email using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been specifically established for this purpose. The service enables up-to-date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek this information through the more administratively expensive Parliamentary Questions process.