permission that they wish to renew under Section 4(7) of the Immigration Act 2004 a permission may be renewed
or varied on application thereof by the person concerned. This latter provision will not apply to those persons who
have been put on notice of a proposal to make a deportation order in respect of them.
Where an immigration permission is granted by the ISD under any of these provisions, it is at the discretion of the
Minister for Justice as to what rights are to be granted and for what period of time. Such conditionality may not
afford stateless persons all of the rights guaranteed under the 1954 Convention. A grant of residence in any case
does not explicitly declare its underlying rationale and does not, as a matter of practice, include a formal declaration
of statelessness. Once a permission is granted for a given period, it remains at the discretion of the Minister for
Justice as to whether the permission is to be renewed and on what terms. Some practical issues may arise for
individuals where they are granted permission in this way without recognition of their statelessness. This may
result in further administrative obstacles and hurdles for stateless persons when seeking to renew their permission
to remain, register their permission to reside with the Immigration Service Delivery or An Garda Síochána (the
national police force), or if they seek an Irish travel document and subsequently apply for naturalisation. This
can also have implications beyond the immigration process, for example, when the applicant is registered with a
residency card stating that they have a certain nationality, this can create challenges for them when employers
and/or other state departments/bodies require the production of a national passport despite the applicant being
stateless. Legal representatives consulted as part of this research indicated that they have, on occasion, made
submissions to request that the word ‘stateless’ be included under the nationality heading on a permission to
remain grant letter in order to alleviate any subsequent administrative difficulties. UNHCR is aware of at least one
case where the permission to remain grant letter included the indication of ‘stateless’ and welcomes this practice,
which should ease any future administrative burdens the individual concerned may face.
In some permission to remain grant letters which were shared by legal representatives with UNHCR for the
purpose of this research, there was a stipulation such as ‘permission to remain has been renewed to enable
you to continue your efforts to obtain a valid passport’ or ‘no future renewals will be considered without a valid
passport.’ Additionally, applicants seeking to renew their permission to remain were sometimes requested to
provide evidence of ‘reasonable efforts’ they had made to obtain a passport from their Embassy or Consular
Authority from their country of origin for renewal of permission. In one such correspondence from ISD, permission
was granted to enable the individual concerned to obtain a valid passport. The letter addressed to the legal
representative stated that:
‘If you cannot obtain a valid passport in this time you must show that they have made reasonable and formal
efforts to obtain a national passport and that it has been formally and unreasonably refused. Provision of
original correspondence from the relevant consular authorities is an essential component when considering
the registration of these applicants with Gardai National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), while not in possession of
valid passports.’84
Other similar correspondence shared with UNHCR noted that when individuals applied for renewal of their
permission to remain, they were required to
‘produce to Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) an up-to-date national passport or provide
evidence that you are a Stateless person. If you are not in a position to produce a passport to this office,
you will need to provide documentary evidence that you have made reasonable efforts to obtain a passport
through your Embassy/Consular Authority of your country of origin. If you do not comply with these conditions,
the processing of your renewal application will be delayed and future permission may be refused.”85
24
84
Correspondence shared by Catherine Cosgrave, Immigrant Council of Ireland with the consent of her client. It should be noted that GNIB
registered immigration permission prior to 2016 when ISD took over responsibility for registering immigration permission in the Dublin
area.
85
Correspondence shared by Catherine Cosgrave, Immigrant Council of Ireland.
Mapping Statelessness in Ireland