Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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159. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if her Department plans to introduce a formal process for determining statelessness, a regularised system for recognising stateless persons in Ireland or a process for stateless children who migrate to Ireland; and if so, the details and timelines for the plan to implement such a process. [53690/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Statelessness results from the complex interaction of many legal and other factors. There is no specific determination process for recognition of stateless persons in Ireland; claims of statelessness can arise at any point in the immigration and protection processes and the numbers involved are very low.

My Department deals with such cases without recourse to a determination of their statelessness status. The determination of any such cases are not centralised in a single process or section of my Department's Immigration Service Delivery. As such, applications for immigration permission or naturalisation are determined through the procedures set out under the Immigration Acts, the International Protection Act 2015 or the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended.

While there is no specific determination process for recognition of stateless persons in Ireland and there are no immediate plans to introduce a formal Stateless determination procedure at this stage, the matter is being kept under review by my Department.

Where an international protection applicant claims to be Stateless, the international protection officer will makes every effort to determine if the relevant applicant is entitled to a particular nationality, including in their country of former habitual residence (the country with which the applicant has the closest connection). Where this is not possible, the applicant’s case will require to be processed based on the working assumption that the applicant is Stateless and their nationality record will represent them as such, solely for the purposes of the international protection determination process.