Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will try to address the issue the Deputy has raised in the context of the section as a whole. As the Chairman noted, neither I nor my Department has a role in deciding whether an amendment is ruled in or out of order. From a policy perspective, the Deputy deserves to understand why we have not brought forward a similar proposal to what he has set out in the amendment which has been ruled out of order. During the Second Stage debate my predecessor, Deputy Charles Flanagan, explained the rationale for this policy which I will reiterate briefly for the benefit of the Deputy.

Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, members of diplomatic missions and their families are required to be exempt from immigration controls. With regard to citizenship, like many other countries, Ireland has long considered that the spirit of the Vienna Convention envisages people coming to the State as employees of a foreign government for a finite period of time before returning to that country or another on assignment. In these circumstances, it is considered appropriate to exclude such persons from the mainstream citizenship arrangements, just as they are exempt from immigration controls, one being a logical corollary of the other. In effect, employees of foreign governments are deemed to be the responsibility of those governments. Persons who are working in a diplomatic mission here are effectively exempt from all sort of things, including a potential liability for tax and PRSI, and do not need to go through work permit application procedures or anything like that. They come as part of a diplomatic mission and are usually here for a set period before moving to another mission, whether back home or in a different state. As such, they are in a different category from other types of non-citizen worker. Somebody who receives a work permit to come here is effectively part of the Irish immigration system by being here. After four to five years, he or she has the timeline required to be eligible to apply for naturalisation. By contrast, a person who comes to Ireland to work in a diplomatic mission bypasses all of these application procedures and arrives as part of a team from another country, representing that country's interests and being employed by its government. Of course, at some later point, if such persons wish to apply to come here as individuals, they may do so on the same basis as anybody else.

The matter being raised by the Deputy was whether they should be able to use the time they spent here on a diplomatic mission as time towards a naturalisation application at some stage in future. That was not the intention of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations in general. Just as when Irish teams are abroad in Irish embassies, they are essentially still part of Ireland although they operate outside the State as a representative for Ireland. That was the rationale as outlined by the previous Minister, Deputy Flanagan. I will take a look at it in a bit more detail if the Deputy so wishes before Report and Final Stages. Perhaps we could have a stab at the numbers involved, as they would not be huge. There is a point of principle whereby somebody who comes to Ireland and needs to go through the permitting and visa procedures and who works here on the back of that permit system is in a different category to somebody who comes here as part of a diplomatic team. I will have a look at it but the rationale as outlined by the former Minister stands, and that is why we do not have an amendment mirroring that of the Deputy yet.