Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I, too, welcome the Minister of State. I know how busy he is. His presence here is appreciated. This matter is a simple one. I have provided the details on the applicant as additional information. It has to do with registering of births. This couple were abroad when the child arrived prematurely. The mother is from Australia and the dad is from Ireland but they are living in Ireland. The child was born abroad and they are going through the process of registering the birth with the Department of Foreign Affairs in order that they can go ahead and apply for a passport on behalf of the child.

Were it not for the Australian authorities, this child would still be stateless abroad. The Australian authorities were able to intervene and provide a short-term passport that will expire in August to facilitate the child coming back home to Ireland. This passport runs out in August. What will happen in August? This family wants to travel or at least the freedom to travel. The passport is not just a document that facilitates travel. It is an identification document and it is used for myriad other reasons. In the first or second week of August, the temporary Australian passport expires that was provided to facilitate this child being able come home, having been born prematurely abroad. Unless the Australian authorities are prepared to step up and intervene again, the child then becomes stateless again. It is completely unacceptable.

We all know the challenges in the Passport Office. The staff there are doing their best under difficult circumstances because every box needs to be ticked in order to facilitate a passport. We all get that. However, when it comes to the registering of births, surely to God the Department of Foreign Affairs can do a little bit better than allowing this type of situation go on for months. I have been making representations to the Department of Foreign Affairs for weeks now on this. It just shows the level of frustration that I have to come in here and put this down as a Commencement matter with details supplied to get some answers for these two people who are taxpayers and citizens of this country and are going about their business correctly, to see why in God's name their child cannot be registered and they cannot get a passport.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Conway for raising this issue. On the details of the particular application, I am not aware of it but I hear that the Senator has been in contact. I might touch on that matter in a few moments. The Senator might tell me roughly what month the child was born in and in what country. He may have given me some of that information but when he comes back, he might give me that as well.

On a general note, the Department of Foreign Affairs is responsible for citizenship by descent through the foreign births register under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. That is in respect of people who may have an entitlement to Irish citizenship and birth registration based on either their parents or grandparents.The Senator is well aware that people may apply for Irish citizenship through foreign birth registration if one of their grandparents was born in Ireland, or if one of their parents was an Irish citizen at the time of their birth, even if their parent was not born in Ireland. From what the Senator has outlined to me, the case involved definitely fits directly into that category.

Once a person is entered into the foreign births register, he or she is an Irish citizen and entitled to apply for a passport at that point. The passport comes second, but the foreign births register is the key to making everything happen. Foreign birth registration, by its nature, is detailed and complex. It can involve official documentation relating to three generations and issued by several different jurisdictions. That may not be the case with regard to the particular case to which the Senator is referring.

To protect the integrity of the citizenship process, these applications require careful processing in order to validate the identity of the applicants, the documents they have submitted and their entitlement to Irish citizenship. Accordingly, all applicants undergo rigorous and detailed checking by experienced officers in the Passport Office. I stress that in a world league, the Irish passport is in the top handful of passports that are recognised internationally as being the highest quality with regard to security checks before they are issued. This is so much the case that Ireland has two areas where people can get pre-emigration clearance heading into the USA, because they have such confidence in our regime here that they have made that facility available. It is not available in the majority of other countries.

Demand for foreign birth registration services reached an unprecedented level following the UK Brexit referendum in 2016. Prior to that, foreign birth registrations averaged approximately 5,000 to 6,000 per annum. However, post-Brexit referendum demand for citizenship via the foreign birth registration reached peaked levels in 2019 when 32,000 online applications were received. The most recent full yearly figures saw almost 28,000 applications received by the Passport Office in 2022, with current figures indicating that applications will exceed this number again this year. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the application time was normally 18 months. Foreign birth registration was also impacted by Covid-19 restrictions in 2020 and 2021, as well as the unprecedented demand for passports in 2022 after the Covid-19 restrictions were lifted. This service was paused for 15 months across the 2020 and 2021 period, after which the turnaround time was approximately two years. The system came to a full stop for those periods during the Covid-19 pandemic, and we have a major backlog as a result of that.

Since September 2022, a significant number of staff has been allocated to dealing with these issues in the Passport Office. Some 200 extra clerical staff have been taken on, and more than 90 permanent staff to work in areas of the service, including the area of foreign birth registration. I am happy to inform the Senator that generally this redeployment has reduced the normal turnaround period to between six and nine months. If I can get more information, I would be happy to respond in further detail.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for the reply. The child was born on 27 December 2022 in Malaysia, and on returning to Ireland, having got the documentation from Australia, the couple engaged in a process of applying to have the child's birth registered. We are talking about, I would imagine, the end of January, so we are talking about four or five months. The problem is that obviously the child has no passport, and the child is not in a position to apply for a passport, so they cannot travel until such time that they get the birth registered and have that confirmed, and then apply for an Irish passport. That is the date and the country. I thank the Minister of State.

Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I want to thank Senator Conway for that further information. I will ask the office in the Department of Foreign Affairs to contact the Passport Office directly. I am not promising anything, only that I will follow up on the matter to the best of my ability. Ultimately, the decision has to be made by the relevant deciding officers, and we all know I should not interfere in a particular case. However, I will make strong inquiries as a result of what has been said here today.

Senator Conway has indicated that there is an Australian parent. The child was born in Malaysia, and is now in Ireland, so there are three countries involved, and the delay may not be on the Irish side. It could be on either the Australian or Malaysian sides, and we will ask our people to make direct contact on the case. I understand the child was born prematurely, which had not been expected, and it is an exceptional circumstance. There was a big backlog, the numbers increased, more staff has been allocated, and the numbers now being dealt with have reduced the waiting period from up to two years down to approximately six months. I know for people who are born in the UK, it is easier to deal with, with the common law jurisdiction. It is the extra countries that can add to complications, but we will do everything to make inquiries, and will come back to the Senator directly on that.