David Norris (Independent)

The Minister of State is very welcome back to the House. This matter concerns a citizenship application, which is currently a troubled area, with 17,000 people in the queue awaiting citizenship. On average, every application takes about 30 months. That is a broad picture.

Within this picture there are certain particular anomalies. We are told today that a function of politicians is to address anomalies and eradicate them. This was done extremely speedily in the case of Deputy Michael Woods, a former Minister. We were very quick to address that anomaly and I hope we will be just as quick to address this. I will put it theoretically before the House and then outline the particular case.

In order to apply for Irish citizenship, an applicant requires at least 60 months of what is termed "reckonable residence" in Ireland over the past five years. The period when a foreign national is resident in Ireland on a student visa is not regarded as reckonable residence. When the Bill covering this was going this House, I remember the reason given for that provision was fair enough. The authorities were concerned that people — I believe it was Chinese people in particular although not only Chinese but other nationalities — would come here, attend fly by night language schools and use such time spent as a justification for building up the time required to qualify for citizenship. This was seen as a back door approach and not strictly honourable. The authorities wanted to clamp down on that.

The exclusion of time on a student visa from reckonable residence calculation creates an unfair situation in certain cases. I will outline the case in question. For example, if a foreign national comes to Ireland as a minor with his or her foreign parents or guardians, he or she is resident here as a dependant and has no choice in the matter. This period as a dependant counts as reckonable residence. However, once a person turns 18 and goes on to third level education, he or she is resident here on a student visa and such time is excluded from reckonable residence.

The results of the exclusion of student visa time from the reckonable residence calculations are, first, that the person would need to stay up to eight or nine years before he or she could apply for citizenship. Then he or she would experience about a three-year delay before possibly getting citizenship. That means that a person would have to wait 11 to 13 years in total for citizenship. Second, after completing third level education, he or she would only be able to remain in Ireland on a work permit. There is no certainty that the person would get such a permit. Thus, a person who comes to Ireland, puts down roots here and becomes integrated into Irish society may not be able to continue to live here after being here for up to seven or eight years. That is manifestly unfair.

The policy of excluding student visa time from the residence calculation is to stop people who come here as students deliberately remaining until they have reached the six-month period required, but this is not the case in the anomaly to which I referred. I ask that there should be a change of policy not only in this case but generally to provide that time spent here on a student visa should count as reckonable residence if the applicant comes to Ireland as a dependant minor of a non-national parent or guardian and legitimately remains here during his or her dependent and student periods.

The particular case I wish to raise concerns a South African man who was head-hunted by the Government. Its officials actively recruited him in 2001 in South Africa and brought him over here to work for An Bord Pleanála as a planning inspector. He arrived here in August 2001 and was seconded to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government as a planning inspector. His legal status is that he is here with a work authorisation visa. He came to Ireland with his wife and youngest daughter.

His daughter went straight into transition year in a secondary school near where they live. She finished her leaving certificate in 2004, completed a year at post leaving certificate level in Inchicore College and then started a three-year veterinary nursing diploma course at UCD. Recently she got her results and passed all her second year subjects. It is a requirement of the course that students work for at least a certain number of hours each week in a veterinary practice. For the past two years she has held a part-time veterinary nursing position in a local surgery.

Having all been here together with the same status for five years, they applied together in November 2006 for Irish citizenship. They got a response from the Irish Nationalisation and Immigration Service regarding their applications. In the case of the man who was head-hunted, there is no difficulty. He is sailing through, if one could call it that, and is on the right track even though the procedure is extraordinarily slow. While his application is being processed, it will take the usual 30 months to process and the officials are only examining the applications lodged in 2005. If all goes well, it will have taken three years for his application to be processed, which is what tends to happen in such cases. As the man said, it is hardly greased lightning but they can live with it.

In his wife's case, the authorities have discounted the nine months from the time the family arrived until the time in 2002 when her passport was stolen. They seem to be incapable of having the machinery to investigate the fact that her passport was stolen. It was perfectly well known that she was here with her husband as his wife and living in the family home, he having been recruited by the authorities in this land. This means that she does not have the length of time here to qualify to make an application.

The worst aspect is the daughter's position. The Nationalisation and Immigration Service has discounted all the time for reckonable residence since she left secondary school, in other words the period she studied in Inchicore College and in UCD. This means that in practice she cannot get the required 60 months reckonable residence in the near or even medium term future. It appears it is Government policy not to include time spent studying at tertiary level when totting up the time legitimately spent in Ireland, even when the young person had no choice. She was brought here as part of a family unit and did most of her schooling here. At the end of this system she has been told she does not have the required period to qualify. She will have to wait for 11 to 13 years. If this position is not rectified, this girl will have to leave this jurisdiction in a few months' time.

This is a complete nonsense and a farce. It is, as the former Minister, Deputy Woods, might term it, an anomaly. It needs to be rectified. Deputy Woods indicated that we as politicians are here to rectify anomalies. We head-hunted this man and brought him to this country with his family. We had difficulties with his wife's application and could not understand how in holy Catholic Ireland a passport could be stolen and the implications of that. His daughter is here but the authorities do not calculate any of the time she has spent here as reckonable residence because she was a student. The provision in the legislation is perhaps understandable in the case of people who are not bona fide students, but in the case of this person, something should be done.