Garda National Immigration Bureau cards are not issued to asylum-seekers but to non-nationals who have been granted permission to remain in the State. Asylum-seekers are issued with a temporary residence certificate by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner.
There are two circumstances relevant to the parliamentary question where persons wishing to vote may need identification. One is where a person who is not on the electoral register applies to be included in a supplement to the register which is published prior to polling day. The application form must be signed and certified at a Garda station, and the person may be requested to produce photographic or other supporting identification. Up to recently, gardaí have not been in a position to certify applications by asylum-seekers where the only form of identification available was a temporary residence certificate, as it is expressed not to be an identity card but rather a statement that an individual claiming to be the person named in the certificate has applied to be recognised as a refugee in the State. However, the application form was recently amended to enable temporary residence certificates to be accepted for this purpose.
The other circumstance is where a voter is required to produce one of a number of specified documents at a polling station for identification purposes. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government recently signed the Electoral (Amendment) Regulation 2004, specifying temporary residence certificates, among other documents, for this purpose.
