Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome and I greatly admire him, as he knows, but he is the wrong Minister for this topic. I wanted to ask the Minister for Social Protection to outline the progress and the next steps to amending the Civil Registration Act to enable the registration of deaths of Irish people who die abroad. I have raised the topic with the Minister and, since then, she asked me to meet with the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. I did so and he promised me a memo would come to Government.

I will explain the problem. Young people go on holiday on student visas to the US and sometimes deaths occur abroad. Two young people died abroad two years ago and one parent spearheaded this major campaign entitled Bring Them Home. It is now a Facebook campaign with 4,200 people seeking the registration of Irish people who, sadly and tragically, died abroad while on holiday or on a student visa. The Minister is faced with a dilemma. How long should they be out of the country before we register their deaths abroad?

Currently, this only happens in exceptional cases, namely, if the person is a member of the Defence Forces, Naval Service or Army. I am speaking today about people who die abroad and whose families want their deaths registered in Ireland. I am not sure if the Minister of State is aware of this but as things stand if he or I died abroad our death would not be registered in Ireland even though this is our country of residence, which is incredible. Our passports would remain live and for all intents and purposes here we would be alive because our death would have only been registered where it occurred, with the death certificate available for use in Ireland for administrative purposes, if necessary. However, one's passport could be misused, although that is not my motivation for raising this issue. My motivation is the genuine desire of families to have the death abroad of their Irish citizen child, brother, sister, husband or wife, registered in Ireland.

This matter was the subject of discussion at the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection during the last term and has also been discussed in this House. I hope that the Minister of State, Deputy McGinley, has some good news in terms of when the Minister proposes to address this issue. I received a letter from the Minister on 15 October which states:

Any broadening of the current provisions requires careful consideration given the number of people who live and die in other countries and who have, or are entitled to have, Irish citizenship. This issue is currently being considered by my Department, along with a number of other proposed amendments to the Civil Registration Act.

The Minister states that she intends to introduce legislation early in 2013. I am imploring that this issue be addressed in that Bill. Perhaps the Minister of State will say if cost is a consideration in this regard. I believe all of the families with whom I have met, to whom it matters so much to have their loved one's death registered in the country where they were born, would be willing to pay ¤100 for such a death certificate. I should point out that my understanding of this issue comes from families in Galway.