Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 September 2014
131. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the extent to which alternative provision will be made to facilitate their application for naturalisation-update of stamp 4 in the case of a person (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36404/14]
View answerI am informed by the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) of my Department that the person concerned is a sibling of an Irish citizen child of non-EEA Parents, born in the State prior to 1 January, 2005, whose mother was granted temporary permission to remain in the State on 24 January, 2006 under the revised arrangements for the non-EEA national parents of children born in Ireland prior to January, 2005, commonly know as the IBC/05 Scheme. The person concerned was granted permission to remain in the State on 11 April, 2008, in line with the period already granted to her mother. This permission was subsequently renewed on several occasions and is due to expire on 31 January, 2015.
Officials in the Citizenship Division of the INIS inform me that there is no record of an application for a certificate of naturalisation from the person referred to in the Deputy's question.
The position in general is that persons making an application for a certificate of naturalisation are required to provide evidence of their identity. If they do not have their passport, birth certificate or other supporting document, then they should obtain it, so that the State can have equivalent proofs of the identity of naturalised citizens as all other citizens. In rare circumstances where an applicant cannot obtain their passport, birth certificate or other supporting documents for reasons genuinely beyond their control, then the applicant will be required to provide an explanation and submit evidence, such as correspondence from the relevant authorities responsible for the issuing of passports and birth certificates in their country, stating why they are not obtainable. The Citizenship Division will assess those reasons and if satisfied that they provide a genuine impediment, alternative means of validating the true identity of the person will be put in place.
I should remind the Deputy that queries in relation to the status of individual Immigration cases may be made directly to INIS by Email using the Oireachtas Mail facility which has been specially established for this purpose. The service enables up-to-date information on such cases to be obtained without the need to seek this information through the more administratively expensive Parliamentary Questions process.
