John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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197. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if an estimate has been made as to the number of unaccounted for American citizens currently resident here, that is, Irish citizens who moved to the United States of America and became American citizens before returning here and who have not registered with the United States embassy. [16506/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My colleague the Minister of State for the Diaspora and International Development, Ciarán Cannon T.D., last month published a new Report on Addressing Challenges Faced by Returning Irish Emigrants.

That Report’s analysis of census data shows that, in 2016, 26,428 Irish emigrants returned home and that in the previous year the United States was the usual residence for 2,566 of them.

It is likely that some of these people returned as dual Irish and US nationals and some may have registered with the US Embassy as US citizens, as is their entitlement. We have, however, no right of access to the records of the US Embassy and therefore we have no way of knowing how many of these dual-citizens have or have not registered with the US Embassy.