Sharon Keogan: Demands answer on 10-year delay to section 6
Sharon Keogan raised the non-commencement of section 6 of the Civil Registration Amendment Act 2014 and challenged the minister over a near-10-year delay. She argued the uncommenced provision affects birth registration rules for children of unmarried parents and urged clarity on drafting and operational steps.
Issue raised
Keogan noted the Act was passed on 27 November 2014 and signed into law on 4 December 2014, but that section 6 has still not been commenced. She said she was misled by a contradiction on the Irish Statute Book website, has submitted a commencement matter twice and counted almost 4,000 days without a commencement order for section 6.
Content of section 6
She outlined that section 6 deals with the registration of births and naming of parents where the parents are not married. The section places a duty on both parents to comply with registration, requires a mother who attends alone to provide the father’s name and contact details in most cases, and sets rules for the registrar to follow where a mother furnishes evidence that her spouse is not the father.
Drafting and technical issues cited by the department
Keogan said she was told the department is drafting an amending bill to correct a technical reference that points to subsection 1a instead of subsection 1, and that the correction will appear in the forthcoming civil registration electronic registration bill. She recalled the minister’s earlier explanation that sections 7, 8 and 9 were commenced on 20 November 2020, while section 6 remains outstanding.
Operational readiness and outstanding questions
She relayed that the minister previously cited the need for further engagement with the HSE and the impact of COVID-19 on training and operational readiness. Keogan pressed the minister for updated information on whether additional drafting or engagement steps have been completed and reiterated that the provisions are practical and intended to provide certainty in the birth registration system.
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Thank you. This commencement now is on the non-commencement of section 6 of the Civil Registration Amendment Act 2014. This Act was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas on the 27th of November 2014 and was signed into law on the 4th of December. As per section 1.3 of the Act, the Minister must commence certain sections. This last happened in 2020 with statutory instrument 550 which commenced sections 5, 7, 8 and 9. This was brought to my attention by the Assistant Registrar-General of the Department in October 2023 when I raised this commencement matter at that time. Today I am forced to raise it again. I was misled by a contradiction of the Irish Statute Book website regarding the commencement of these sections. Section 6 of the Act has not yet been commenced. It has been nearly 4,000 days and the commencement order has not been given. I have submitted a commencement matter a second time so that we can hear why this is the case. This section in question relates to the registrations of births and the naming of the children's parents on documents in cases where the parents are not married. It provides that it is the duty of both parents to comply with the registration of the birth of the child notwithstanding that they are not married to each other. Where the mother of the child attends alone she must provide information as to the father's name and contact details. Where the mother furnishes evidence and a statute declaration that her spouse is not the father of the child the registrar must make responsible efforts to contact the spouse. Where parents fail to agree on the surname to be registered the registrar may complete the registration by leaving the surname field blank or where a surname is already registered leaving the surname in place. These are practical and common sense provisions that were debated and voted in favour of 10 years ago. They will also allow people in the future to be able to trace their lineage back, more importantly to get in contact with the estranged family if they wish to do so and engender greater certainty in the birth registration system. I understand that the amending bill is being drafted by the department to correct a technical issue in section 6 causing it to reference subsection 1a instead of subsection 1. If this assists in getting a certain commence this section commenced it is a welcome move but why it is taken why has it taken so long? I understand that the legislative drafting is necessary and exceeding exact science and one that cannot be rushed but 10 years seems an awfully long time to wait for any commencement of any legislation. When I last raised this matter in 2023 I was told by the minister in relation to section 6 that prior to commencement a technical error was discovered in the relevant amending legislation. This technical error is required to be corrected and this will be achieved in the forthcoming civil registration electronic registration bill which as a senator will be aware was considered in pre-legislative scrutiny and approved for drafting by the joint committee of the social protection community in rural development and the islands. The minister continued by stating that the bill is currently with the office of the parliamentary council and is at the advanced stages of drafting. That was last October 2023. The minister deputy Harris looked forward to bringing the bill to the Oireachtas shortly. The minister also added that given the passage of time since the training was delivered and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, further engagement with the HSE will be needed to ensure operational readiness prior to commencement. So I hope Minister Hackett you might be able to shed some light on the matter particularly as to whether additional steps have been taken in the meantime. Thank you. Thank you very much Senator. Minister, you have four minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kilgan and I'm here again on behalf of Minister for Social Protection who does thank the Senator for raising the issue again. The Civil Registration Amendment Act 2014 principally, as you've said, remends and extends the Civil Registration Act 2004 and that act was signed into law on the 4th of December 2014. Minister Humphreys previously outlined to the Senator the sections referring to the law relating to marriages contained under part six of the Civil Registration Act 2004 were commenced in 2015 and these sections primarily referred to marriages of convenience cases. Other sections have been commenced in 2016 and in 2020. Sections six to nine of the act referred to by Senator Kilgan are related to the requirements under part three of the Civil Registration Act 2004 to the registration and re-registration of births. The Senator will know that sections seven, eight and nine of the Civil Registration Amendment Act were commenced on the 20th of November in 2020. Section seven and eight substituted existing legislation concerning the re-registration of births. The new section permits a birth to be re-registered in circumstances where the mother was not married to the father, amends some of the regulations around the acceptance of court orders and provides a new system of rebuttal of paternity in cases where a married mother requests a register to re-register a birth with a father who is not her husband. Section nine introduces a mechanism around registering a birth where there is a failure between the mother and the father to agree a surname for the child. As the Senator has outlined, the only section referred that has not been commenced is that section six. Section six of the Civil Registration Amendment Act 2014 introduces new provisions relating to the registration of the father where the parents are not married to one another. This section sets out that the mother, if she attends alone, is required to name the father of the child with limited exceptions applying. Registration of the father will then be dependent on the man acknowledging paternity of the child. Commencement of these provisions was subject to the HSE arranging dates and venues for the delivery of training to registrars and this training was delivered in early 2020. It is true that prior to commencement at that stage a technical error was discovered in the relevant amending legislation. This technical error was corrected in the recently enacted Civil Registration Electronic Registration Act 2024 and the Act was signed by the President in July of this year. This will now facilitate the commencement of section six. Further engagement, however, is still needed with the HSE in relation to those operational readinesses necessary prior to the commencement, but Minister Humphreys is pleased to inform the Senator that officials in the General Register Office are engaging with the Superintendent Registrars in the HSE in this regard. Department officials are happy to engage further with Senator Keoghan on this matter. Thank you very much, Minister. Senator, you have one minute to respond. Minister, thank you. I realise much of this is really what I got the last time. While I welcome that the technical error has been corrected with the Electronic Registration Act 2024, it still hasn't moved forward in that year. You know, we knew there was going to be an issue in relation to the HSE in getting this matter dealt with, you know, with regard to training. And one year later, we're still nowhere. So I really want this to move forward. There are many, many fathers out there that have been deprived of having their name on birth certs and their rights as fathers throughout this country. And it's important that this legislation is dealt with as quickly as possible so that they have certainty with regard to their rights to their children. Thank you very much, Senator. Minister. Thank you, Senator Keoghan, for, I suppose, acknowledging that some progress has been made and that that technical error has been corrected. I will, however, relay your continued concerns in relation to this. As you say, the commencement of Section 6 will provide an opportunity for all fathers' names to be recorded in the Register of Births. And I'll certainly follow up with Minister Humphreys after this commencement matter to see if we can hasten the training that's needed for the HSE registrars. Thank you.
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