Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Corcoran Kennedy, for coming to the House to deal with this matter. I raised a similar matter a couple of weeks ago with regard to the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act, which was signed into law in December 2014. Section 13 of that Act provides for a record of death of Irish citizens who die abroad. On the last occasions I raised this matter, I referenced the case of Ms Bernadette Goodwin who tragically lost her five-year old son, Keith, while in the north of Spain in 1972, the death of whom is registered in Spain. Ms Goodwin has spent over four decades trying to have his death registered in Ireland. It is my understanding that for insurance and legal reasons a death cannot be registered twice. However, Ms Goodwin and others who are in this situation would be provided with some comfort and solace if this were to come into being. We owe it to people like her to expedite the provision in section 13 of the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act which provides for a record of deaths abroad to be maintained by the General Register Office. The Department of Social Protection cannot commence this section or any further section of the Act until industrial relations issues relating to new practices arising from the implementation of the Act have been resolved. A Commencement Order was signed in August 2015. I understand that staffing and industrial relations issues in the Civil Registration Service are a matter for the HSE. I further understand that a report on a review of the Civil Registration Service was commissioned when the dispute began and that this allowed the sham marriage provisions to be implemented but left everything else on hold. The findings of that review were due to be published in June 2016. However, no report has yet been published.

There are many other important provisions that remain uncommenced due to the dispute, including the compulsory registration of fathers' names on birth certificates and validation of embassy marriages. It is my understanding that the Department of Social Protection is under increasing pressure from EU bodies and embassies to commence the latter provisions. Apart from these high profile amendments to the Act, there are a host of other useful amendments intended to improve and modernise the registration of births, deaths and marriages which, while technical, are nonetheless important, including better procedures to record neo-natal deaths, which provision was introduced at the request of the Department of Health on the basis of recommendations made by the Chief Medical Officer.

This ongoing dispute, which is difficult to fathom from my angle, has led to an unacceptable delay in commencing the remaining provisions of the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014, which was enacted two years ago and 18 months since the Department of Social Protection first sought to commence its provision. It is not clear what progress has been made by the HSE in bringing this matter to a close thus clearing the way for the legislation to be implemented. This is a very unsatisfactory situation that must be addressed as a matter of priority.