Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am here on behalf of the Minister for Social Protection, who thanks the Senator for raising the issue again.

The Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 principally, as the Senator said, amends and extends the Civil Registration Act 2004. The Act was signed into law on 4 December 2014. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, previously outlined to the Senator the sections referring to the law relating to marriages contained under Part 6 of the Civil Registration Act 2004 were commenced in 2015 and these sections primarily referred to marriages of convenience cases. Other sections have been commenced in 2016 and 2020. Sections 6 to 9 of the Act referred to by Senator Keogan are related to the requirements under Part 3 of the Civil Registration Act 2004 to the registration and re-registration of births. The Senator will know that sections 7, 8 and 9 of the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act were commenced on 20 November 2020.

Sections 7 and 8 substituted existing legislation concerning the re-registration of births. The new sections permit a birth to be re-registered in circumstances where the mother was not married to the father, amends some of the regulations around acceptance of court orders and provides a new system of rebuttal of paternity in cases where a married mother requests a registrar to re-register a birth with a father who is not her husband. Section 9 introduces a mechanism around registering a birth where there is a failure between the mother and father to agree a surname for the child.The only section referred to that has not been commenced is section 6. Section 6 of the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 introduces new provisions relating to the registration of the father where the parents are not married to one another. This section sets out that the mother, if she attends alone, is required to name the father of the child with limited exceptions applying. Registration of the father will then be dependent on the man acknowledging paternity of the child.

Commencement of these provisions was subject to the HSE arranging dates and venues for the delivery of training to registrars and this training was delivered in early 2020. It is true that prior to commencement at that stage a technical error was discovered in the relevant amending legislation. This technical error was corrected in the recently enacted Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Act 2024 and the Act was signed by the President in July of this year. This will now facilitate the commencement of section 6. Further engagement, however, is still needed with the HSE on the operational readiness necessary prior to the commence but the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is pleased to inform the Senator that officials in the General Register Office are engaging with the superintendent registrars in the HSE in this regard. Department officials are happy to engage further with Senator Keogan on this matter.