Foreign nationals ‘refused citizenship over parking offences’

FOREIGN nationals are being refused Irish citizenship due to a lack of “good character” and in some cases, because they have parking offences.

A study by the Cork-based Irish Immigrant Support Centre NASC also shows that refusal rates for long-term residents who are seeking Irish citizenship are very high, at about half of all those applications.

The organisation said many aspects of the citizenship process, including in many cases the reasons why applications are refused, are shrouded in secrecy and needed to be made more transparent.

NASC carried out in-depth interviews with 203 people from 57 different countries who have applied for citizenship here.

Included among the findings:

* One of the reasons people are refused is because they are not of “good character” and any incident that means someone’s name is in the Garda’s Pulse system appears to constitute “bad character”.

* “Good character” refusals accounted for 40% of the refusals documented in the study.

* Four refusals were on the basis of the applicant having committed a parking offence.

* The waiting time for the processing of applications is at least two years.

Of the 203 people interviewed in depth for the study last year, 137 still had applications pending.

Of the other applicants, 23 had been granted citizenship, and 39 — or 63% — had been refused, including 21 refugees.

“Because the department does not publish statistics, we do not know whether this apparently very high refusal rate is an anomaly,” said a spokesperson for NASC.

The refusal rate in 2008 stood at 47% and the NASC study indicated that many applicants are confused by aspects of the citizenship process.

According to NASC, “There is no appeals mechanism, and the citizenship section will not engage with people who want to know why their application was rejected, and what they should do to become eligible — for example, whether the passage of time will eventually render a blot on their record irrelevant.”

With the exception of asylum seekers and student-visa holders, persons who have been legally resident in Ireland for four out of the previous eight years are eligible to apply for naturalisation. Recognised refugees can apply after three years.

Whether citizenship is granted to such applicants is a matter left entirely to the discretion of the Justice Minister, under the existing act.

Statistics provided by the Department of Justice show that up to December 7, 2010, approximately 6,300 people had obtained Irish citizenship through naturalisation — higher than levels in 2009.

But the NASC study claims of the people interviewed, five were refused on the basis of a driving offence.

Four others were refused on the basis of a conviction for what was described as a “minor criminal charge”, while another application was refused when someone was charged, but not convicted, of an offence. Two other applications were turned down for a failure to respond to a summons.

The study will be published in full in the near future.