Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 402: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding the legal status of parents of children born here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26144/11]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended, sets out the position as to which persons born in this State can claim an automatic entitlement to Irish citizenship by virtue of their place of birth. Essentially, any child born in the State seeking to claim an entitlement to Irish citizenship must have a parent who is an Irish citizen or, if not, one of the two parents must have been legally resident in the State for three of the four years preceding the child's birth.

In the event that the Deputy is referring to the position in the State of third country national parents of Irish born minor citizen children in light of the European Court of Justice Judgment in the Zambrano case, the position is as follows. The ECJ Judgment provides that EU Member States, Ireland included, are precluded from refusing a third country national upon whom his minor children, who are European Union citizens, are dependent, a right of residence in the Member State of residence and nationality of those children, and from refusing to grant a work permit to that third country national, in so far as such decisions would deprive those children of the genuine enjoyment of the substance of the rights attaching to the status of European Union citizen. In Ireland, this Judgment applies to the non-EEA national parents of Irish born minor citizen children.