Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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113. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the eligibility for a passport in the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6479/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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All passport applications are subject to the provisions of the Passports Act 2008 (“the Act”). The Act provides, among other things, that a person must be an Irish citizen before a passport can be issued to him/her. In order to meet this legal requirement, each person must demonstrate an entitlement to Irish citizenship in his/her passport application.

The applicant referred to was born in May 2008. Any possible claim to citizenship for the applicant is governed by the terms of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956 as amended (“the 1956 Act”). Section 6A 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 his/her birth.

In such cases, proofs of lawful residence in the State are required to determine if a parent has the required three year residence. For non-EU parents, permission to remain in the State recorded on passports, and/or registration cards, as issued by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), are acceptable proofs of a parent’s lawful residence in the context of a passport application.

In this case, the applicant’s parent did not provide proof of lawful residence in the State for the required time-period prior to the child’s birth. Without such proof of lawful residence, an entitlement to citizenship and therefore eligibility for an Irish passport, was not established.

Citizenship – including naturalisation – comes under the remit of the Department of Justice and Equality (Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service) and further information is available on the website www.inis.gov.ie