Ms Una Boyd:

I am not aware of the case challenging it, but what happened after McCarthy was the court ruling allowed for dual British and EU nationals to be excluded from exercising EEA family reunion rights. This concerned a British person who acquired Irish citizenship through descent. As Emma touched on, there was no real factual connection and it did not really reflect on Northern Irish-born Irish citizens or the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. In their eagerness to prevent people bringing family to the UK through the EEA route, however, the Home Office took it and applied it across the board to anyone they would consider a British and EU dual national. This is when it began stating that everyone in NI was British automatically, therefore excluding them from exercising those rights.