Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 19 May 2004
66 Mr. Gilmore asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he has received representations from other EU countries suggesting that the current right to Irish citizenship of anyone born in the island of Ireland was being abused by residents of their country or that the law or the Constitution should be changed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14552/04]
View answerI have not received any such representations.
The substantive issues referred to by the Deputy are matters for the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The Deputy will be aware, however, of the case referred to the European Court of Justice by the UK Immigration Appellate Authority. The Advocate General has now delivered his opinion in favour of the applicants' right to reside in the territory of a member state of the EU.
In the course of the proceedings in that case, the United Kingdom Government disputed the court's jurisdiction to give a ruling on the matters which had been submitted to it. In that context, it argued that the only element of the case which was not internal to the United Kingdom was the child's Irish nationality. Its view was that her nationality was acquired as "the result of subterfuge resorted to by Mr. and Mrs. Chen, which should be seen as an abuse of law". The Advocate General, in his opinion, stated:
The fact is that the problem, if problem there be, lies in the criterion used by the Irish legislation for granting nationality, the jus soli, which lends itself to the emergence of situations like the one at issue in this case.
In order to avoid such situations, the criterion could have been moderated by the addition of a condition of settled residence of the parent within the territory of the island of Ireland. But there is no such additional condition in Irish legislation, or in any event no such condition was applicable to Catherine.
