Derek McDowell (Labour)

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 5, line 18, to delete "person's birth" and substitute "date of the application".

I believe these amendments have been tabled largely for clarification purposes. I will deal with amendment No. 6 first, if I may, which seeks to insert the word "ordinarily" in page 5, line 19, after "been". Will the Minister clarify, for the sake of the record, whether very brief periods of absence from the State do not count? I assume there is some criteria for assessing when someone takes a holiday for a week, a month or whatever, that this is not necessarily deducted from his or her entitlement in terms of the reckonability of the previous three years. I hope not too many people will be counting up the days, but nonetheless, it should be clear that it is possible to have relatively short periods of absence from the State out of the reckoning and therefore we are importing the concept of "ordinarily resident" as opposed to "resident" into the Bill.

Amendment No. 5 simply provides that the three reckonable years can be counted back from the date the application for citizenship is made, as opposed to the date of the person's birth. In most cases, again, I believe this will not make a great difference.