Vol. 491 No. 1
60 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will clarify the procedure for the issue of a certificat de coutume; if he will clarify the criteria for establishing domicile and the details of the divorce petitions that are required in this regard; and if an application by a person (details supplied) in County Wexford will be approved. [11371/98]
Irish citizens intending to get married in certain foreign countries are required by the authorities in those countries to produce certificats de coutume or certificates of freedom to marry. Such certificates are obtainable from the Department of Foreign Affairs or from the Irish Embassy in the country where the Irish persons concerned normally reside on presentation of the long forms of their birth certificates, completed questionnaires, completed statutory declarations witnessed by notaries public, commissioners for oaths or solicitors and payment of a statutory fee of £10. The form of declaration made by Irish citizens with foreign divorce decrees differs from that made by persons who have never previously been married or whose marriages have been dissolved by means of an Irish divorce decree; persons who have previously been married and who have divorced abroad are also required to present their divorce decree and certain other documents may also be requested depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Such persons are also advised in writing by means of a note on the statutory declaration form issued to them to seek legal advice prior to making their statutory declarations. Such advice is necessary as the law in this area is complex. The certificates are normally issued within a month of application.
It is not possible to give an exhaustive definition of the meaning of domicile in Irish law as the concept is complex and derives from court judgments which deal with particular sets of individual circumstances, the common law, the Constitution and the Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Act, 1986. However, it is possible to say in a general way that for the purposes of Irish law an adult individual is domiciled in the country where he or she is resident and intends to reside permanently or indefinitely. If the individual has no fixed intention he or she is domiciled in his or her domicile of origin: an individuals domicile of origin is generally dependent on the domicile held by his or her father at the time of his or her birth.
For a foreign divorce to be recognised in Ireland under the Domicile and Recognition of Foreign Divorces Act, 1986, it is generally necessary that at least one of the parties to the divorce proceedings have been domiciled in the foreign jurisdiction concerned at the date of the institution of the divorce proceedings. In the case of UK divorces it is sufficient that one of the parties to the marriage has been domiciled in any of the jurisdictions that make up the United Kingdom, i.e. England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, at that date. Statements made in the statutory declarations presented in connection with applications for certificats de coutume are therefore checked to confirm this point before such certificates are issued. Additional evidence such as statements made in petitions for divorce, affidavits from former spouses and documentary evidence of property holdings and bank accounts may also be required, depending on the circumstances of particular cases.
The person named by the Deputy has been domiciled at all times in Ireland and has been refused permission to marry in Ireland by the Registrar-General of Births, Marriages and Deaths because of lack of proof that his wife was domiciled in a United Kingdom jurisdiction at the date that he instituted divorce proceedings in England and Wales. He has produced evidence to the Department of Foreign Affairs additional to that produced to the Registrar-General but it is not sufficient to prove that his wife was so domiciled. He is, therefore, being informed that a certificat de coutume for him cannot be issued in the absence of (a) further evidence of the place of domicile of his wife at the date of the institution of divorce proceedings, (b) an Irish court order under the Family Law Act, 1995, with the Attorney General joined as party to the proceedings, recognising his foreign divorce or (c) an Irish divorce decree.
