Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 323: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the number of non-EU nationals who have applied for continuing residency here this year to date as a spouse who has married a non-Irish EU national here; the breakdown of the nationality and gender of the applicants and their EU spouses; the nationalities and number of applicants granted such residence to date; the numbers awaiting decision; the numbers refused such residency and the reasons for such refusal. [40126/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I should point out that the applications referred to by the Deputy can be based on marriages which do not necessarily have to have taken place in Ireland. My Department does not keep records in such a way that would allow the ready separation of applications based on the location of the marriage. Records in relation to the number of non-EU nationals who married in Ireland in 2010 are held by the General Registrars Office which is under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection.

However, I can inform the Deputy that to end-September 2010 there were 1,950 applications made by non-EU nationals for residency under EU Treaty Rights, of which 1,487 involved spousal applications. For the same period in 2010 there were 1,193 applications granted, with 542 applications being refused and 167 not accepted or withdrawn. Some of these decisions would have related to applications carried over from 2009. At the end of September 2010, there were 1,158 applications on hands awaiting a decision.

Refusals were due to non-compliance with Directive 2004/35/EC on the rights of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States (the "Directive") and the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2006 and 2008 (the "Regulations") which transposed the Directive into Irish law.

My Department has prepared statistical information in response to your query including a table giving a breakdown by applications based on marriage by the top ten applicants by nationality and by spousal nationality for 2010 and a further two tables give the top ten nationality and gender analysis of EU Treaty Rights applicants based on marriage for 2010. The Deputy will appreciate that the details in this regard are too extensive for inclusion on the normal electronic system for answering Parliamentary Questions. I have, however, made arrangements to have this portion of my reply delivered under separate cover to the Deputy in manuscript form.

For the Deputy's information, certain information on the situation this year, up to 30 September 2010, has been extrapolated from the statistical tables prepared. Pakistani nationals have made the most applications - 286 - based on marriage to an EU citizen with 128 of those applications based on marriage to a Latvian national. Of those 286 Pakistani applicants, 266 were male and 20 were female. The second highest number of applications was made by Nigerian nationals with 185 applications being made based on marriage to an EU citizen with 40 of those applications based on being married to a English national. Of those 185 Nigerian applicants, 121 were male and 64 were female. In total, 293 Latvian spouses have been attached to applications for EU Treaty Rights with 47 being male and 246 being female. There were 227 English spouses attached to applications for EU Treaty Rights with 118 being male and 109 being female.