determination procedure but will keep the matter under review, having regard also to developments in other jurisdictions and the nature of their determination procedures.”48 Similarly, government officials in 2015 responding to a legal representative in this area have stated that there is no positive obligation on Contracting States under the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons to implement a determination process for recognition of stateless persons. The officials noted at that time that deliberations were ongoing regarding having a formal process for stateless persons but that steps would need to be taken to ensure that any such process could not be a pull factor for statelessness driven migration or that Ireland was not taking on responsibilities for resolving cases that might be more appropriately dealt with in other Member States. In October 2021, in response to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s request49 to report on any measures taken to establish a statelessness determination procedure, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth stated as follows in the draft combined fifth and sixth State Report of Ireland to the Committee:  “Ireland does not have a formal procedure for the determination of statelessness. As statelessness can arise at any stage in the immigration and protection process, it can typically be addressed through the various processes under the International Protection Act 2015 which contain clear provisions with regard to securing the best interests of the child, including unaccompanied minors, or the various immigration processes where statelessness is not co-existent with a protection need.”50 Similarly, in relation to a parliamentary question the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee noted that:  “Statelessness results from the complex interaction of many legal and other factors. There is no specific determination process for recognition of stateless persons in Ireland; claims of statelessness can arise at any point in the immigration and protection processes and the numbers involved are very low. My Department deals with such cases without recourse to a determination of their statelessness status. The determination of any such cases are not centralised in a single process or section of my Department’s Immigration Service Delivery. As such, applications for immigration permission or naturalisation are determined through the procedures set out under the Immigration Acts, the International Protection Act 2015 or the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended.”51 As part of this research the Department of Justice was consulted in relation to its practice regarding stateless persons. The approach adopted by the Department is to reach ad hoc solutions in relation to individual stateless cases whereby persons in this situation may be granted a right of residence in the State, accompanied by a right to work, without giving any detailed consideration to their statelessness claim. Due to the case-by-case approach and ad hoc solutions it is difficult to know if all persons claiming to be stateless were able to have their situation resolved in practice. However, in the absence of ongoing legal representations and requests by such persons or their legal representatives on that issue, the Department of Justice noted that it may be reasonably concluded that the issues they had raised which had prevented them from fully engaging in Irish life had been mitigated by the ad hoc solutions referred to. No updates were provided by the Department of Justice on the possibility of a statelessness determination procedure being introduced in the future. Without such a process, stateless individuals may spend considerable lengths of time trying to resolve their situation through various administrative and immigration procedures. They will likely face obstacles in each procedure due to lack of official confirmation 48 Parliamentary question response to question 173 of 12 June 2014 by former Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald, available at: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2014-06-12/173/ 49 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, List of issues prior to submission of the combined fifth and sixth reports of Ireland, CRC/C/IRL/ QPR/5-6, available at: https://bit.ly/3YgprQo 50 Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Draft Combined Fifth and Sixth State Report of Ireland to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, October 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3VQxjX6 51 Parliamentary question response to questions 444, 4445 and 447 by Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, 7 December 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3FMgOG1 UNHCR 17