Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The Senator is correct in that there are certain categories of British subjects who are not invested with the right to be in the United Kingdom. One of the categories provides that a person is entitled to reside in the United Kingdom without any restriction on his or her period of residence, if he or she has what is known as the right of abode there or has a passport endorsement to the effect that "there are no longer any restrictions on your stay in the United Kingdom relating to your immigration status".

Commonwealth citizens have the right of abode if their mother, or if legitimate, their father was born in the United Kingdom, which is an interesting distinction; or in the case of a woman who at any time before 1 January 1983 had been married to a person with the right of abode and in either case were Commonwealth citizens on 31 December 1982, having ceased to be Commonwealth citizens after that date. After a number of years a person may apply to become settled in the United Kingdom and in such cases there are usually no restrictions on his or her period of residence. However, what we are discussing in general terms is people who are entitled to be in the United Kingdom as of right. That involves British nationals and people who under UK law have a right of residence without temporal restriction on them. I do not know and cannot tell the Senator whether Gurkhas in Katmandu are inside or outside this definition and I do not propose to go down that road. I am talking about British nationals who have a right to reside in the United Kingdom and non-British nationals who have, nonetheless, been granted by the British Government the right to reside there, without any restriction on their right of residence in terms of time.