Northern Irish citizens will be impacted by High Court decision, Immigrant Council says
The CEO of the Immigrant Council of Ireland has warned that Northern Ireland citizens seeking citizenship in the Republic are going to be impacted by Thursday’s controversial decision in the High Court by Mr Justice Max Barrett that applicants for citizenship must have “unbroken” residence here for a year before they apply.
Mr Justice Barrett said the Minister for Justice’s discretionary practice of allowing applicants six weeks out of the country, for holiday or other reasons, and more time in exceptional circumstances, is not permitted by law.
The CEO of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Brian Killoran said that it is unclear how this approach would affect Northern Ireland applicants because they are entitled to apply for Irish citizenship too.
What does this ruling mean for them?
He told RTÉ Radio’s that the High Court decision has been greeted by “a huge amount of worry and shock and dismay by those that have applied and those that are just about to apply because citizenship is a massively important thing for people not only for the situation of integration, it just brings so many new rights in terms of voting rights and things like that.
“I think it's fair to say that this decision doesn't reflect the kind of reality of people's lives - they have to travel for work and they have to travel for family purposes, marriages, funerals, normal family human things.
At this point in time as statements from the Minister and from the deputy secretary general Una Buckley yesterday evening, has sought to reassure people that this is a matter or urgency and are looking for a solution.
“Our phones yesterday were hopping about this, people are really worried about the situation. I think it's fair to say that the department are treating it in a manner in which they're looking to fix it rather than simply have this be the approach from here on out because I don't feel that anyone thinks that's practical so we would say it is an opportunity to look at how continuous residency is judged and there are good examples at European level, like European directives on things like citizenship and long term residency that can give good direction on this.
“We hope it will be resolved as quickly as possible because people are literally sitting waiting for news that all eyes are on the department in terms of their response to this.”
Mr Killoran said that citizenship is one of the most important processes that that anyone from a migrant background will go through in the State.
“It's something that we've seen since 2011 and the introduction of the Citizenship Ceremonies, well over 100,000 people have gone through the citizenship process, including of late an increasing attractiveness of Irish citizenship to people from the UK - so this throws up a can of worms in that regard.
It even applies to applicants from Northern Ireland who may be married to an Irish citizen.
“There are numerous different facets that need to be resolved. That is why the department are treating it as a matter or urgency and we hope that a solution comes out. I know they are in talks with the Attorney General's office at the moment about what's possible.
“We're watching this space.”
