Legislation planned to legalise embassy marriages

THE GOVERNMENT is planning to introduce legislation to legitimise about 3,000 marriages carried out illegally at foreign embassies in Ireland.

Minister for Social Protection Éamon Ó Cuív said yesterday his officials were working on legislation to resolve the problem, which sparked a major diplomatic row last year with several EU states.

“What we are trying to look at is what happens to people who thought in good faith they got married legitimately here and our law doesn’t provide for such marriages . . . It will ultimately be a matter for Oireachtas na hÉireann to decide but I do think we have to deal with the issue,” he said.

Several EU states were performing marriages at their embassies up until March last year when the Government wrote to all foreign embassies to alert them to the fact that such ceremonies are invalid and illegal under Irish law.

This followed concerns that significant numbers of marriage ceremonies were being performed for citizens from new EU states, who were working in the country.

It is understood the Polish embassy carried out 1,000 wedding ceremonies and the Lithuanian embassy carried out at least 100 weddings.

The 2004 Civil Registration Act requires all wedding ceremonies to be performed by an authorised registrar and to take place in a registered building, open to the public, to be legal and valid.

Diplomats from several EU states have expressed concern that unless the Government retrospectively legitimises the weddings, the couples’ marriages – which have already been recognised in their home countries – may have to be deregistered. 

Under international rules, ceremonies deemed illegal in the country they are performed cannot be recognised in the home state, according to the diplomats.

Several couples who contacted The Irish Times last year said the ruling was causing problems when they sought to register their children in the names of both parents at the General Registry Office.

Some couples were advised to register children in the name of a single parent, which they feared could lead to complex custody, taxation and inheritance issues.

Mr Ó Cuív said all embassy marriages had now stopped and he had sought legal advice on legitimising those weddings that had taken place. He said the new legislation would not allow for embassy marriages in the future.

It is understood the legislation could be modelled on the Lourdes Marriage Act 1972, which provided for the registration of marriages that took place in Lourdes, France, before its enactment.

This was to resolve the difficulty of a significant group of Irish citizens who had married in Lourdes over the years, according to the rites and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, but who subsequently found that because the local civil procedures had not been observed, these marriages were not registerable in France.

Mr Ó Cuív said the legislation could also include measures to tackle so-called sham marriages between EU citizens and non-EU citizens for the purposes of circumventing immigration law. 

He said bolstering the powers of marriage registrars was being considered.

“Our big concern here is that people who obviously don’t know each other and don’t share a language get married here for reasons other than legal bona fide marriages reasons,” he said. 

New legislation would have to be fair by dealing with the abuses without stopping other people from legitimately getting married.

A third strand of the legislation would update the rules regarding the registration of Irish citizens who died while abroad, Mr Ó Cuív added. 

The deaths of Irish citizens abroad was currently only registered in Ireland if it took place on a ship or aircraft or if they were a serving member of the Garda or Defence Forces.

Mr Ó Cuív said the registrar general was looking at this issue to see if Irish deaths abroad could be registered at home.

SIC: IT/IE