Automatic Irish-Parent Descent (Gen-1)

There is NO 'application' to acquire citizenship under this route - for the Gen-1 (parent-born-in-the-island) case, citizenship vests by operation of law at birth (see vesting), and no FBR registration is required or available as a precondition of status. The procedural dimension is proof/operationalisation, not grant: the person establishes and exercises the already-existing citizenship by doing an act that only an Irish citizen is entitled to do - paradigmatically applying for an Irish passport through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Passport Service. Authority split (LOCKED): passport issuance and documentary recognition of this birthright-descent status are handled by DFA / Minister for Foreign Affairs; naturalisation and revocation (not relevant here) sit with the Minister for Justice via ISD, functions transferred by S.I. 418/2011 (A-IE-INST-01) - do not normalise into a single authority. Practical steps: (1) gather the applicant's foreign civil birth certificate (showing birth outside the island) and the Irish-citizen parent's evidence of Irish citizenship - for Gen-1 typically the parent's Irish birth certificate (proving birth in the island) plus the parent's passport; (2) evidence the parent-child relationship consistent with the s.7(1) 'parent' definition (genetic father / birth mother per [2023] IESC 10); (3) lodge an Irish passport application (DFA Passport Online or paper) as the citizen-only act crystallising the entitlement. Fees/timelines: this route carries NO statutory acquisition fee and is NOT an FBR registration - therefore the FBR fee schedule (EUR 278 adult / EUR 153 minor) and ~12-month FBR processing time do NOT apply to Gen-1 (those are the Gen-2 IE-DSC-02 figures, pinned A-IE-descent-12, A-IE-descent-13). The only cost is the ordinary DFA passport fee, set administratively by the Passport Service.

IE-DSC-01 is first-generation citizenship by descent: a person born OUTSIDE the island of Ireland acquires Irish citizenship automatically from birth where, at the time of that birth, a parent was an Irish citizen (or would if alive have been). The conferring provision is INCA 1956 s.7(1): 'A person is an Irish citizen from birth if at the time of his or her birth either parent was an Irish citizen or would if alive have been an Irish citizen' (A-IE-descent-02). Section 7 was wholly substituted on 2 December 1999 by INCA 2001 (15/2001) s.3(1) and is titled 'Citizenship by descent' (A-IE-descent-01). honoured - descent is s.7, NOT s.6: s.6 governs jus soli (birth in the island) and s.6A the post-2005 conditional regime; descent is exclusively s.7 (Locked Anchors section 4). A supporting provision is s.7(2): a parent's failure to do a s.6(2)(a)-type act (formally asserting his/her own citizenship) does NOT prevent the child acquiring citizenship under s.7(1) - the parent's underlying entitlement, not its formal exercise, is what matters. Critical structural distinction (the load-bearing feature of Gen-1): where the qualifying Irish-citizen parent was born IN the island of Ireland, the child is Irish automatically from birth with NO registration; the Foreign Births Register (FBR) machinery and the s.7(3) proviso prospective-registration rule apply only to the next generation down (the 'double-also-born-abroad' rule of s.7(3) - see IE-DSC-02/03) (A-IE-descent-03, A-IE-descent-04). The deceased-parent limb ('or would if alive have been an Irish citizen') must be carried forward (VC-IE-descent_s7_fbr-01).