Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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468. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the status of children who are born here to non-Irish parents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55948/21]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, following the 2004 referendum, the 27th amendment to the Constitution was inserted as follows:

ARTICLE 9

21° Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, a person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, who does not have, at the time of the birth of that person, at least one parent who is an Irish citizen or entitled to be an Irish citizen is not entitled to Irish citizenship or nationality, unless provided for by law.

2° This section shall not apply to persons born before the date of the enactment of this section.

This Article enables the Oireachtas to legislate for the terms of entitlement to Irish citizenship for children born in the island of Ireland.

The status of children who are born here to non-Irish parents may vary depending on their individual circumstances.Under current law whether a person born on the island of Ireland to non-Irish parents may be entitled to Irish citizenship or not, is determined mainly by application of section 6A and 6B of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended. The scenarios in which birth on the island of Ireland may result in Irish citizenship include birth to a non-Irish and non-British parent with lawful reckonable residency in the island of Ireland for at least three of the four years before the child’s birth.

The existing citizenship laws are based on lawful and reckonable residency of the parent or parents of the child and this will continue to be the case under the proposed amendments to the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, contained in the General Scheme of the Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021.

The General Scheme of this Bill, which was published on 7 June 2021, includes a proposed amendment to section 15 of the 1956 Act to reduce the residence requirement for naturalisation for minors born in the State from the current 4 year residence requirement to 2 years. In effect, this will replace a 5 year residency requirement with a 3 year residency requirement with the requirement of one year’s continuous residence in the State immediately before the date of application continuing to apply.

If enacted this provision will be applicable in cases where such children are not entitled to citizenship upon birth due to the foreign national parent’s non-fulfilment of the current provisionrequiring a three year reckonable residency period prior to the child’s birth and would allow childrenwho are currently on a pathway to citizenship to attain this status at an earlier stage.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Government committed to introducing new pathways to status regularisation within 18 months of its formation. My Justice Plan 2021 contains a commitment to create new pathways for long-term undocumented people and their dependents who must meet specified criteria to regularise their status. We are now working to finalise the details for the scheme, including eligibility considerations and qualifying criteria, with a view to bringing a proposal to Government and to publish the details of the scheme before the end of this year. Successful applicants will receive an immigration permission, access to the labour market and will be able to begin the process of becoming Irish citizens, should they wish to do so. It is expected that a significant number of families and children will benefit from this scheme.