Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Feighan for his kind words of welcome. On behalf of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who cannot be here this evening, and for the benefit of the House in general, I am pleased to respond to the matter raised by Senator Feighan. The file reference quoted by the Senator relates to an application for naturalisation by the person in question. That application was refused. However, in view of the matter raised by the Senator I will deal with the issue of leave to remain in the State, which is an entirely different matter.

At the outset, the Minister has now issued a letter to the person in question, granting her permission to remain in the State for a one year period without the need for private medical insurance. That permission may be renewed on application. She is also required to register with her local Garda registration office. It should be noted in this context that for the first eight years of her residence in the State, she was here without permission and failed to register with the Garda Síochána, as required by law.

A refusal to grant permission to remain in a case such as this is not tantamount to making a deportation order. Under the Irish legislative regime, the Minister is required by law to notify potential deportees in advance and to afford such persons an opportunity in writing to advance reasons as to why they should not be deported. As the Senator is no doubt aware, that never happened in this case and nor was it likely to happen.

The person in question was granted permission to remain in the State on 7 April 2005 on condition that she had private medical insurance. The difficulty was that she was unable to obtain such insurance, a difficulty which emerged only when she visited her local Garda registration office. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Minister has now decided to extend her permission for humanitarian reasons, having regard to the duration of her residency in the State and her personal and family circumstances.

In a wider context, the principles applied in this case are applied by immigration authorities in all jurisdictions. In addition, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform recently published a document entitled Immigration and Residence in Ireland, which outlines policy proposals for an immigration and residence Bill. That document contains an entire chapter on the admission of non-economically active persons. The Minister would welcome contributions from all quarters on the complex web of issues surrounding the immigration phenomenon, including issues that arise in the context of the Senator's Adjournment matter.