The Foreign Births Register (Irish: Leabhar Taifeadta Breitheanna Coigríche) is an official register of foreign births with Irish citizenship that is kept by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. A Foreign Births Entry Book is also maintained in every Irish diplomatic mission and consular office, the contents of which are from time to time transcribed into the Foreign Births Register.
The system of citizenship registration was established by the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956. A child born outside Ireland to a parent who holds Irish citizenship and who was also born outside Ireland may acquire Irish citizenship by having the child's birth entered into the Foreign Births Register or a Foreign Births Entry Book. The citizenship of such children is effective from the date of registration, or for those registered on or before 30 June 1986, effective from the date of birth, or 17 July 1956 if the person was born before that date.
Once entered, a certified copy of the entry is issued (a small A5 certificate bearing a signature and the stamp of authenticity from the authority responsible for having made the entry e.g. Irish diplomatic mission). This certificate is handwritten on specially produced security paper which incorporates an intricate turquoise design and which may be used as proof of Irish citizenship when applying for a passport without any further proof of citizenship being required. A statutory fee is charged for access to this facility (somewhere in the region of EUR 139, STG 100 or USD 217) and processing times vary from around three to 10 months depending on the location and workload of the embassy/consulate concerned, or of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin if the birth is registered there.
Famous quotes containing the words foreign, births and/or register:
“We should meet each morning, as from foreign countries, and spending the day together, should depart at night, as into foreign countries.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As the births of living creatures, at first, are ill-shapen: so are all Innovations, which are the births of time.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)