Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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692. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if a passport will be issued in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Louth; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23927/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Passports Act, 2008 provides, among other things, that only Irish citizens are entitled to be issued with Irish passports. Each application received by the Passport Service must, therefore, contain relevant evidence that clearly demonstrates that person’s entitlement to Irish citizenship before a passport can issue to him/her. The child in question was born in the State in 2013 to parents who are non-EU nationals. His entitlement to Irish citizenship is, therefore, subject to Section 6A of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956, as amended (the Act). This provides that a person, born in the State on or after 1 January 2005, where neither parent is an Irish or British citizen or otherwise entitled to reside in the State or Northern Ireland without restriction at the time of that person’s birth, may claim citizenship by birth in the State (and thereby establish eligibility for an Irish passport) only where a parent has been lawfully resident in the State for three years of the four years preceding that person’s birth. It should be noted that periods of authorised residence in the State for study are excluded under the Act for the purposes of section 6A.

In line with guidelines provided by the Department of Justice and Equality (D/JE), which is responsible for immigration and citizenship, the proofs of lawful residence of a non-EU parent, which are accepted and considered by this Department for the purposes of passport applications are immigration stamps in passports or the registration cards/books, which are given to persons registering with the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).

A passport application for this child was received by the Department on 5 March, 2014. However, it could not be finalised for passport issue because the duration of his mother’s lawful residence was insufficient to demonstrate his entitlement to Irish citizenship under section 6A of the Act.

This decision was reached on the basis of submitted evidence of the mother’s lawful residence, which included the immigration stamps on her passport and her registration card.

The Department wrote to the applicant’s mother on 19 May, 2014 to inform her of this. This included a request for any correspondence, which she may have received from the D/JE that granted her right to reside in the State. (This letter would have enabled her to subsequently obtain the relevant immigration stamps from GNIB for her passport.)

This evidence is crucial to the Department’s assessment of her child’s passport application. The calculation of residence for the purposes section 6A of the Act is strictly based on the validity period of an immigration stamp and/or registration card. However, as a letter from the D/JE would normally predate the validity date of a stamp/card, the calculation of the reckonable residence can be extended back to the date of that letter – thus rendering more residence to the parent.

If such evidence exists, it has not yet been submitted to the Department for consideration.

The submitted application is now out of date and has been cancelled. A new application should be submitted with the any additional original evidence plus any correspondence from the D/JE in regard to the granting of residence to the child’s mother.

If this is not feasible, the parents may wish to apply to have their child naturalised. To do this, they will need to contact the D/JE. In the event that an application is successful, a certificate of naturalisation would be issued to the child. This certificate would be sufficient evidence to demonstrate his Irish citizenship for any future passport application.