Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I appreciate he is here representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He might bring my message back to the Department. Some of the stories arriving on my desk are about families being split; one parent who has a passport can travel back to Ireland but because his or her child was born overseas the child cannot travel. There are also the retirees I mentioned who want to live here, and it is financially viable for them to do so, in addition to those in various other family circumstances. The Minister of State is in the game of politics a long time and he knows none of these families finds this easy. It is very difficult. I ask that the Minister do something to get the foreign birth registration office up and running again. There are about 32,000 applications outstanding, which is a large number, although the processing system is more complex than the ordinary one. I again thank the Minister of State for his time and I ask him to bring that message back.