Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ireland has taken the view, up to now, that asylum seekers are not "normally resident" here. Germany takes the view that they are. What the Deputy is asking me to do is to change that view. I am sympathetic to what he says and I am particularly sympathetic to the fact many of these asylum seekers have skills that are necessary and they want to stay here, and getting a driving licence would obviously assist them in their desire to stay here.

We are looking for two things. One, obviously, is a different interpretation of "normally resident", and there is another problem, which I am addressing in order to get a conclusion which the Deputy would like, namely, identity verification. A key difficulty in issuing a driving licence to asylum seekers is identity verification. Ireland has determined that the appropriate level of identity verification is the standard authentication framework environment, level 2, or SAFE 2. Asylum seekers come to the jurisdiction with a variety of documentation, or potentially no documentation.

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