Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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235. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality her views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding immigration; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19416/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Immigration into Ireland takes a wide range of forms including EU citizens and their families exercising the right to free movement, work permit holders and their families, students, persons granted refugee status and their families and many other categories.

Not all immigrants into Ireland engage or interact with my Department. For example, EU/EEA citizens have the right of free movement across the EU and, therefore are not subject to any entry or exit controls; nor are they required to register their presence in the State with the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB). Accordingly, my Department does not maintain figures in relation to the number of immigrants from EU/EEA countries in the State. Separately, of the categories of non-Irish nationals, who are required to register with the GNIB for stays of longer than three months, persons under 16 years of age are exempt.

Therefore, the likely best overall source of information on the number of non-Irish nationals in the State is the data produced by the Central Statistics Office in the census and published on the CSO website. For the information of the Deputy, however, I have set out below the number of non-EEA nationals who were registered with the GNIB at the end of each of the last five years.