Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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382. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade further to Parliamentary Question No. 327 of 17 February 2021, if allowances will be made (details supplied) in cases in which delayed foreign birth registrations impact the rights of the child to claim citizenship as a result of Covid-19 and not through any fault of their own; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24084/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department is responsible for citizenship by descent through the Foreign Births Register. At present, there are 30,000 applications in the Foreign Births Registration (FBR) system that are awaiting processing. The Passport Service will be scaling up its services in the coming weeks including a return to more normal processing of FBR applications.

Entitlement to Irish citizenship is determined by the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 (“the 1956 Act”), as amended, under which Irish citizenship may be obtained by birth, by descent, or by naturalisation.

The 1956 Act provides that great-grandchildren of Irish-born persons are not eligible for entry into the Foreign Births Register (FBR) unless their parents were entered onto the Register at the time of their birth. To change this, an amendment of the 1956 Act would be required.

The Department of Justice is responsible for citizenship matters. Any amendment to the 1956 Act is a matter for the Minister for Justice.

The Department of Foreign Affairs administers the FBR process and operates a clear and transparent general policy for processing FBR applications. In situations where the completion of registrations potentially impact on the rights of a person, it will consider urgent requests to expedite registered applications on a case by case basis. Applicants can make contact with the Passport Service through the WebChat service.