An Angolan man who has five Irish citizen children has won his appeal over been refused Irish citizenship by the Minister for Justice on the basis of a finding he was “not of good character”.
When he applied for naturalisation in October 2013, he disclosed two convictions for road traffic offences committed in late 2012 - failure to display an insurance disc and a tax disc. The Minister asked the man for details and he explained, inter alia, the incident was to be seen in the context of an acrimonious break-up of his marriage. He alleged his ex wife sought to incriminate him by making serious allegations which would lead to his being separated from his children and, when he was out of the country, a barring order was secured on her behalf.
Ms Justice Power said there was no evidence the Minister had any regard to any exculpatory factors related to the alleged incident of May 2013, including that no childcare proceedings were pursued arising from it; the ex wife had withdrawn her allegations and he had secured a protection order against her.