Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 358: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if extension of residency will be offered to a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13061/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The person in question was admitted to the State under the fast-track working visa scheme as a nurse. Persons working under this scheme are allowed to change their employers within the same skills category. In other words, the permission to work in that skills sector is vested in the employee rather than the employer.

The scheme requires that a non-EEA national nurse must be registered with An Bord Altranais, the Nursing Board. In this context, nurses with qualifications from countries other than Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States must undertake a period of supervised clinical practice in an Irish hospital, temporary registration, before they are eligible for full registration. This registration process is not a matter which comes within my area of responsibility. However, such registration is, together with a job offer, the benchmark by which visa-required nurses are admitted to the State.

The person's permission to remain expired in November 2004. At that stage she was no longer employed as a nurse. Furthermore, she was no longer employable as a nurse in the State because she had been removed by An Bord Altranais from its register, a matter which now appears to be the subject of High Court proceedings. Therefore, even if I were to grant her permission to remain, she would not be entitled to work as a nurse. It seems she was not in lawful employment for a considerable period prior to the expiry of her permission to remain and she is claiming unemployment benefit. Notwithstanding the foregoing, her permission to remain was extended for a further three months. This further permission has now expired.

Her solicitors have written to me indicating she requires a further extension in regard to her High Court proceedings on the basis that it is important she remains in the jurisdiction pending the outcome of those proceedings. They are not proceedings between a non-national employee and an employer but between a person wishing to practice the profession of nursing and the regulatory body charged with responsibility for professional misconduct and alleged unfitness to engage in nursing practice. No information is given about the court proceedings, including the stage they have now reached and the expected date of conclusion. Instead, I am asked to extend permission once again to a person who is in dispute with the regulatory body for her profession, who is entirely reliant on State funds and for a period which is not specified. I am not prepared to grant a further extension on that basis alone. It is open to the person in question to apply for a visa to enter the State should she be required to give evidence in the context of those proceedings.