The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed it was taking measures to prevent abuse of citizens’ rights to secure a passport in their Irish-language name to conceal their identity.
The measures to prevent identity fraud involve including the person’s birth name in English on the passport until a citizen can prove they have been using the Irish-language version of their name for two years…
Ah anseo.
Australians fear Irish using names ‘as gaeilge’ in visa fraud (Aideen Sheehan, Independent.ie)
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Let’s Make Love and Listen to The Department of Foreign Affairs..
Sing it Mr Williams !
Is that not unconstitutional? The first language is officially gaelic.
Gaeilge. But substantively, I’ve no idea. I don’t think the constitution says anything about identity fraud, but it is certainly illegal.
No, I meant as in, should I choose to identity myself in gaelic, how can the state stop me from doing that on an official state form (the passport form).
I don’t think they can (open to correction here though). The same thing happened to me but in the other direction (Irish name to English name, my comment below). They asked for 2 years proof I had been using my English name and when I queried it, they just issued the passport.
Odd.
It’s GAEILGE (Irish as Bearla) you tool. Gaelic is what they speak in Scotland.
Fair enough, if a person has changed their name or the spelling of the name. No outrage here.
That’s unconstitutional. If they enforce that, it would be illegal.
What’s unconstitutional?
You can use either version of your name legally, is Mr. T’s point I think, without having to prove that you have been using it for any length of time. Or at least that used to be the case. The passport office used to have a book of translations for most common Irish surnames and it was just a simple matter of requesting that your passport in Irish and that was that. When my passport was issued they did advise me to include a page with the English version of my name too, in case I needed to verify my English language name, but it wasn’t a requirement. Legislation may have been passed since though, which requires you to prove that you are using your Irish name routinely. I’d be interested to hear from somone who knows a bit about this.
Agreeing with you there Huppenstop regarding the right to use either version of you name, but I don’t see where a compulsion to reveal all aliases you use contravenes the right to use any of them. If Páid Ó Laoire’s mammy recorded him as such on his birth cert and said Páid exercised his right to record himself as Patch Leary or Pat Leery or Patric Leroy or whatever Anglicisation he chooses or is advised to use then it’s not unreasonable to record his original spelling in his documents. If nothing else it would ease Garda or PSNI vetting if Páid applies to work in a school.
Only a Fine Gael administration would come up with an anti irish thing like this.
Get the Aussies to be more careful instead.
What is anti-Irish? Is it unreasonable to be asked to reveal any aliases on an identity document?
The Aussies would be careful with an Aussie passport. It is on the Irish to make sure Irish passports are not open to identity theft.
so you want to be able to use the English version as well as the Irish version. A bit West Brit, no?
Do you think?
Can’t believe it’s taken this long for it to surface. There were rumours and hearsay about this happening 10 years ago.
No doubt someone was charged with an offence of some sort over there, was too drunk to say his name was Seamus and now the cat’s out of the bag…
Not sure what the problem is with this. Pick a name and stick to it.
Exactly.
Name change eh… hmmmmmm…
Adfolf Pope Bendeict IX Saloth Sar Mc Vader
…has a nice ring to it, if only I knew it in Irish…
Sorry Ultach, that wasn’t meant to go there :)
Chortle…
The two year thing is not new (at least since 2009) but I think it is an informal policy, as I don’t think it is legally enforceable given the status of Irish in the constitution. My passport was issued using the Irish version of my name. When it came to renew it for the first time, I applied for the renewal in English. My application was refused and they asked for evidence that I had been using the English version of my name for at least two years or else the deed poll where I had officially changed it. But I just wrote back saying that I was entitled to use both versions of my name (I was polite!), they then just issued the passport.
A person changing his/her name into the Irish version on a passport not having previously used it would have the ‘name on birth certificate’ i.e. the English version in this instance, on the opposite page of the passport, in black and white for all to see both versions of the same name.
We’re actually fairly liberal in this regard in both of our states here. Try to use a different spelling of your name or a different language version of it for official purposes in other European states and you’ll get short shrift.
https://vimeo.com/72516124
Have they any Interest in people from Northern Ireland spending 12 months in OZ on an Irish passport and then coming back at another stage do do another 12 months on a British passport?
I always found that kinda funny , no sectarianism , or strong identities for the Northern Irish when it comes to working visas in OZ :-)
Loyal to the half- crown ?
…thought you lads knew all about pasports…