3.2 An overview of the practice concerning identification of stateless persons in Ireland As mentioned above, Ireland does not have a formal statelessness determination procedure. There are, however, a number of contexts in which an inquiry into an individual’s nationality may note their status as stateless: 1) the international protection procedure; 2) certain immigration procedures. This section outlines the practice surrounding stateless persons with respect to those processes. 3.2.1 Formal Declarations of Statelessness Notwithstanding the absence of a formal determination procedure there have been instances when the national authorities have officially recognised a person’s status as stateless. As outlined in the 2014 Scoping Paper on Statelessness in Ireland there have been two instances to UNHCR’s knowledge when the authorities issued statelessness declarations.46 In March 2014, the Irish authorities issued a declaration of statelessness to a stateless person in Ireland who was of Russian ethnicity from the territory of Estonia and in May 2014 a statelessness declaration was issued to a former Lithuanian citizen whose citizenship was revoked there in relation to a mistaken belief that the individual was from Azerbaijan at the time. This individual was subsequently naturalised in Ireland and became an Irish citizen. Both statelessness declarations were positive developments. They marked the first time formal declarations had been issued recognizing the applicants’ status as stateless persons and setting out the rights they were entitled to as a result. Since then, legal representatives have noted some reluctance from the Irish authorities to issue statelessness declarations. To UNHCR’s knowledge no declarations of statelessness have been issued since 2014. 3.2.1.1 The Irish authorities position regarding a formal statelessness determination procedure There has been little evidence to date of a political appetite to introduce a formal statelessness determination procedure in Ireland. This may be for a number of reasons, for example, the perception that the number of stateless persons is so low that such a process is not necessary. During the drafting of the International Protection Act 2015, UNHCR as well as other civil society organisations recommended the inclusion of an enabling provision or similar mechanism to enable the Minister for Justice to introduce a procedure for determining statelessness, but no such amendment was made to the International Protection Act.47 The following responses to parliamentary questions provide some insight into the government’s approach to such a procedure. In response to a parliamentary question in 2014, the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald stated:  “Ireland is not unusual in so far as it does not have a specific procedure for determining statelessness claims. Of the nearly eighty countries to have ratified the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons only a small fraction (including only four EU countries - Spain, Latvia, Hungary and UK) have put in place specific determination procedures for non-protection statelessness claims. While the position adopted by other jurisdictions clearly does not determine the actions that Ireland might take in this area, some caution is nonetheless necessary to avoid a situation where Ireland, as a small country, could become a destination for stateless persons seeking access to a determination process. I have no immediate plans to introduce a formal 16 46 UNHCR, Scoping Paper: Statelessness in Ireland, October 2014, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5448b6344.html 47 UNHCR, UNHCR Comments on the General Scheme of the International Protection Bill, May 2015, available at: https://www.refworld. org/docid/5c2f5b437.html; The Immigrant Council of Ireland and Irish Refugee Council alsoImmigrant Council of Ireland also made submissions to include a definition of statelessness; Immigrant Council of Ireland, Submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality on the General Scheme of the International Protection Bill 2015, May 2015, available at: https://bit.ly/3hjEVCg; Irish Refugee Council, Recommendations on the International Protection Bill 2015, November, 2015, available at: https://bit.ly/3uEnvDE Mapping Statelessness in Ireland