Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The Day of the Jackal, exactly. If such a person presents himself at an office and gets an Irish passport by pretending to be an Irish citizen, he is not an Irish citizen and I have no doubt that the Department of Foreign Affairs would revoke his passport as soon as it discovered that the trick had been perpetrated. However, revoking the passport would not decide whether the person was or was not an Irish citizen. It is a matter of law.

Likewise, regarding a child whose parents have not been here for three out of the four years prior to the child's birth, no amount of issuing passports or waving birth certificates — or tearing up such documents — will change the child's status. Either the child was an Irish citizen from birth because its parents qualified in a particular way, or it was not.

One of the problems with this matter is that we tend to confuse a passport with evidence of nationality, which to some extent it is. However, it does not mean that whether one has a passport will conclude the issue as to whether one is a citizen.