Irish government won't be contributing to the DeSouzas' legal bill
The legal case taken by the DeSouzas was “a private case in respect of an immigration application”, the Irish government said.
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The legal case taken by the DeSouzas was “a private case in respect of an immigration application”, the Irish government said.
“You have to be at the very bottom or you have to be rich to use the legal system,” DeSouza said.
DeSouza was involved in a legal battle with the UK Home Office until last month.
DeSouza said she will continue to campaign for full recognition of Irish citizenship in NI.
Emma DeSouza will be asking the House of Representatives to pass a resolution supporting her case to self-identify as Irish.
Emma DeSouza says that the UK interprets the right to identify as Irish “as akin to being a GAA supporter or country music fan”.
“This is unacceptable. I don’t want to be a British citizen,” one person who wrote to the Taoiseach argued.
Emma De Souza has always identified as Irish, a right that is enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement.
“No one should have to go to court to be able to assert their right to be Irish,” Tánaiste Simon Coveney said in Belfast.
The tribunal made its initial ruling following an appeal by the Home Office in October.
The claim was made by Sinn Féin following a UK Tribunal ruling this week.
The Home Office won an appeal against a ruling which found that people born in the North are not automatically British.
“A person’s nationality cannot depend in law on an undisclosed state of mind,” the Upper Tribunal argued in it’s decision.
The issue about more than citizenship and identity, writes Sarah Creighton.
DeSouza, from Co Derry, identified herself as Irish in an application for a residence card for her US-born husband.
Emma DeSouza has won three court cases against the UK’s Home Office, which has argued that she is a British citizen.
Emma DeSouza is challenging the Home Office’s argument that British immigration law supersedes the Good Friday Agreement.