Sir, – Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the processing of foreign birth registrations (FBR) has been suspended for nearly a year and a half, which has had a serious impact on the Irish community abroad.
Without FBR, some Irish citizens abroad are precluded from obtaining identity documents for their child and regularising its immigration status in their country of residence. They cannot travel, even to Ireland or elsewhere in the European Union, as they cannot prove the child is an Irish citizen and therefore entitled to an Irish passport. In some cases the child may not be entitled to citizenship of any other country.
The impact of the service suspension has been compounded by the unacceptably long processing times which prevailed even before the pandemic.
Restoring it is surely more urgent than maskless dancing in nightclubs.
– Yours, etc,
STEPHEN SHAW,
Zurich,
Switzerland.