Sinnott Solicitors Ireland have received numerous emails, phone calls and enquiries from those who have either applied or intend to apply for Irish Citizenship with the announcement by the Minister to propose changes to the rules around eligibility for Irish Citizenship. The proposal has yet to be brought to Cabinet and it is expected to be brought to cabinet soon.
This should not give rise to panic for those intending to apply for Citizenship. For those who have already applied and whose application has been accepted for consideration the new rules WILL NOT affect you.
For those who intend to apply for Irish Citizenship, the cabinet proposal and procedure is briefly outlined as follows:
Once a proposal gets the green light or formal approval from the Cabinet, it moves into its implementation phase.
According to the Ministers announcement, The General Scheme will be published on the website of the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration in the coming days and will then be referred to the Joint Committee on Justice for pre-legislative scrutiny.
For new laws (Bills): Cabinet approval clears the way for the department to publish the “General Scheme” (the plain outline or “heads”) of a Bill. It then goes through pre-legislative scrutiny by an Oireachtas committee, is formally drafted into exact legal text by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, and returns to Cabinet for a final sign-off before being introduced to the Dáil or Seanad to begin the legislative process.
We anticipate that there will be many submissions made to the Oireachtas Committee by stakeholders and NGO’s and interested parties for consideration.
Therefore this proposal does not mean that Citizenship rules will change in the coming days or in the next few weeks.
It should also be noted that the new proposed rules, should they be enacted, affect only those applying for Citizenship by Naturalisation and does not have any implications for those intending to apply to the Department of Foreign Affairs for Citizenship through Irish Ancestry.
The article below from the Irish Times written by Jack Horgan-Jones provides a very concise overview of the proposed new rules.
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