Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I thank her for her opening statement. The issues of immigration, family law, etc., are complex within one state and even more so when taken into a separate state. I come across many people living in the Border area where we have situations in which children are separated between parents. In other words, they are living in separate jurisdictions and different arrangements are put in place. At present, such arrangements work well. There are issues in respect of all of that and how those arrangements will work in future. There are also issues regarding sex offenders registers and so on to the effect that there will have to be a continued sharing of information between both jurisdictions. In addition, we will have to ensure that there will be the same level of co-operation as has been the case up to now.

Many people from abroad live in this State. The highest proportion of them are from the UK. Many are applying for Irish citizenship and are trying to straighten out that matter. I had a woman in my office yesterday who has been living here for almost 20 years. She is married to an Irishman but is still a UK citizen. She has been paying taxes and working here for that period and she has to pay almost €1,000 to apply for Irish citizenship. This is something that needs to be looked at in the context of people who have lived here and contributed to our society for so long and who then have this huge bill to pay when they want to take on something which is natural for them. This lady considers herself as Irish as anyone else who lives here. She still has a slight English twang but that is all. Something needs to be done about these scenarios and many people have raised that issue with me. The cost of that application is a serious problem for many people.

To go back to the legislation itself, the issues here are highlighting the difficulties of Brexit. Everyone talks about Brexit in the context of the economic impact it will have but it will also have a societal impact. Every effort that can be made to deal with all of that in the most efficient way possible needs to be made. I am a bit concerned about the short time we have to deal with this. It is running towards the end of the year and if there is no deal, which is looking increasingly likely, we could be in a crisis situation in respect of many of these issues as we move forward. Again, the efforts that have been made have to be intensified over the coming months.