The High Court has declined a six year old girl’s application to overturn the decision cancelling her Irish passport. The Minister for Foreign Affairs’ office had cancelled the document when it discovered that it had been issued in error by the Passport Office.
The child was born in Ireland to Chinese parents, who had come here in 2002 on student visas. It appears from an Irish Independent article on the case that there was no question of whether the girl was in fact entitled to Irish citizenship. The Passport Office’s error was discovered when her parents sought visas to return to Ireland so she could attend school here. The girl’s Chinese passport had previously been cancelled by that country’s government once the Irish passport was issued, as China does not permit its citizens to hold multiple nationalities. The girl’s parents argued that it was not appropriate to apply section 18 of the Passports Act 2008 in this case, as it rendered the girl effectively stateless.
However Justice Michael Peart said that there was no ambiguity in the legislation, the Minister did have the power to cancel a passport issued in error, and to find otherwise would “fly in the face of common sense and plain meaning”.
On a noted related to citizenship and residency, in March 2014 the PILA Bulletin reported on the High Court’s clarification of the test to be applied by the Minister for Justice when deciding whether to grant residence permission to an Irish national’s spouse. Click here to read more.
**Editor's note 21/7/14 - the Ombudsman has published a report on his investigation into the difficulties faced by non-EEA workers into getting passports for their Irish-born children. Click here to read the report.