On January 23rd 2003 the Supreme Court ruled that non-EU immigrants did not have an automatic right to reside in Ireland solely because they were parents of Irish citizen children.
While an Irish child has a constitutional right to the care and company of his or her parents, there is no absolute right for this to take place in Ireland.
On February 19th 2003 the Department of Justice announced that immigrant parents of children born in Ireland were no longer entitled to seek residency in the State due to their parental status. Instead, unsuccessful asylum applicants facing deportation would be entitled to appeal for leave to remain in the State on humanitarian grounds, which could include their parentage of Irish-born children.
4,027 people were granted residency on the basis of parenting Irish-born children in 2002, of which 3,077 successful applicants were people who had been or were in the asylum process, while 950 had entered the State as non-EU immigrant workers or students.
Some 11,500 applications for residency by parents of children born in Ireland are pending. At the very least, this means the lives of 23,000 people are on hold until the government decides this month how it will handle this backlog in line with the Supreme Court ruling.