Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 426: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, further to Parliamentary Question No. 130 of 14 April 2005, the reason a person who was legitimately approved for a back to work scheme by the Department of Social and Family Affairs should, as a result, be victimised by having their application for naturalisation refused on the grounds that they received a payment from the State; if his attention has been drawn to the basis and purpose of the back to work scheme, that is a work supportive initiative; if it is his intention to respond negatively to any person who qualifies for this scheme in the future; if non-nationals should be deprived of such schemes in the future; if his action is in accord with international human rights requirements; the number of applications for naturalisation he has refused on this or a similar basis; if he intends to apply this rule in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14284/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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No international human rights norms require the granting of Irish citizenship to Romanian citizens simply on the basis of their residence in the State. Even where a non-national has been granted refugee status, and is thus acknowledged as a person who is unable to seek the protection of his or her country of origin, the 1951 Geneva Convention imposes no obligation regarding the conferral of citizenship, notwithstanding the fact that it does impose obligations on the State to allow the person in question to reside here. The policy as outlined in my response to the parliamentary question to which the Deputy refers has been the policy operated by successive Ministers for many years. As I indicated in that response, an exception is made in the case of refugees and stateless persons.

The person to whom the Deputy refers is neither a refugee nor a stateless person. He entered the State in 1997 and applied for asylum. That application was unsuccessful as was the subsequent appeal. It was open at that stage to the person concerned to leave the State but he chose to stay and obtained permission to remain, as an exceptional measure, on 25 August 1999. Permission was granted, notwithstanding the fact that he was not self-sufficient and the form of permission granted exempted him from the employment permit requirement, thus placing him at an employment related advantage over many thousands of non-EEA national workers who entered the State under the employment permit regime and did not claim asylum.

Records of applications which have been finalised are not maintained in a way which would show the number of individual decisions based on self-sufficiency. Even if they were, the legitimacy of access to State supports by the persons in question is not at issue here nor is permission to reside in the State, those being separate matters entirely from naturalisation. It cannot be that advantageous treatment given by organs of the State to members of our non-national community, whether in the form of back to work schemes, employment permit free conditions or otherwise, must rely on the subsequent naturalisation of the beneficiaries for their legitimacy as instruments of public policy. If advantageous schemes of the type to which I have referred have the desired effect, it will reduce the likelihood of a future naturalisation application being turned down on self-sufficiency grounds.