Do you think giving birth in Belfast will become a thing post Brexit?

[Lalaloveyou2020]

Since 2005 a person born on the island of Ireland (including NI) to Irish or British parents has a right to apply for Irish citizenship/a passport. I read an article in the FT yesterday discussing the obstacles UK business travellers would face in a post Brexit word, which ended with this:

"There’s one group that will do well out of this: UK-based EU passport holders, who will be able to advertise themselves, both to British employers and to EU service buyers, as being able to travel unhindered around the bloc. Best-placed of all will be Irish passport holders, who can not only travel in the EU, but live and work freely in the UK too. Cecil Rhodes, the British mining magnate and colonialist, once described being English as “the greatest prize in the lottery of life”. Post-Brexit, it’s the Irish who hold the winning ticket."

If you really really wanted your child to have access to the EU in the future, would you be willing to move to Belfast for your birth so that your child could then claim an Irish Passport?

This is meant as a light-hearted discussion more than anything else, though if anyone from NI could chime in on how difficult it would actually be to do, please do so! Reason for going to Northern Ireland over the Republic is the access to the NHS and an automatic right to be both Irish and British at birth.

@DioneTheDiabolist

It costs money to give birth in Dublin. It's free in Belfast.

Eh, what? Does it really? How much? And who told you that?

It's just that I'm a bit confused, I've had family and friends give birth in Holles St, the Coombe, the Rotunda. None of them were ever charged a penny.

Private maternity care is a different matter, of course. I assume that also exists in the UK?

Sorry but if you're going to weigh in stating 'facts', please try and get them right first.

I’m just looking at this from the perspective of someone who works internationally. British citizens in my firm live and work in Hong Kong, Korea, America, Dubai... yes you have to get visas etc but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. People do it all the time.

Fucking A. Its just more resource mining from a colonial corpse and it pisses me off. Sort your own shit out and leave our resources alone. The irony of brexit being based on being anti "foreigner" and choosing to deliver in another country to get the passport benefits.

Before people get too excited, haven't the UK Home Office been caught breaking the terms of the CTA and GFA by determining a citizens nationality for them ?

I wish I could remember the ladies name, so I could google it. Do any other posters recall the case ?

@uthredswife Northern Ireland is part of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has the NHS, funded from the Exchequer. I was not suggesting people give birth in the Republic, I was suggesting Belfast as maternity care is funded by tax that these women pay.

@BestWatcherInTheUnit

I’m just looking at this from the perspective of someone who works internationally. British citizens in my firm live and work in Hong Kong, Korea, America, Dubai... yes you have to get visas etc but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle. People do it all the time.

But now you have to show an EU citizen can't be given the job first.

No because you can't just transfer your care here to NI. It's not technically the NHS, it's the HSC, and you have to have a paying patient assessment if you move here and give birth and you have to prove you are resident and intending to stay. I had 2 assessments as they lost my first one.

@DGRossetti was it the Dezosa case about the woman who wanted to apply for an EU spousal visa for her husband but it was contentious as she lived in NI and was classed (wrongly) as being both British and Irish.

DGRossetti - the Emma deSouza case?

[quote Lalaloveyou2020]@uthredswife Northern Ireland is part of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has the NHS, funded from the Exchequer. I was not suggesting people give birth in the Republic, I was suggesting Belfast as maternity care is funded by tax that these women pay.[/quote]
Nope. Not the NHS. It's the HSC in NI. Referred to as the NHS colloquially but actually not. And it's not funded by the exchequer, the money is given to the devolved government to spend. Central British government cannot make health funding decisions as was very clearly explained during the last Stormont deadlock.

Living in N Ireland as a British passport holder, I find this fascinating. I don't hold an Irish passport although I obviously could. I suppose it depends on how strong a feeling of national identity you have and how much you'll do to try and gain advantage.I don't identify as Irish so wouldn't consider having an Irish passport.
I'd have to feel very confident I was going to have an uncomplicated delivery to even consider this.

[quote Lalaloveyou2020]@uthredswife Northern Ireland is part of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It has the NHS, funded from the Exchequer. I was not suggesting people give birth in the Republic, I was suggesting Belfast as maternity care is funded by tax that these women pay.[/quote]
You're suggesting they do it so they can benefit from duel citizenship and getting an Irish passport 🙄. I'm well aware what Northern Ireland is, thanks.

Where are you from OP to be chatting such shit about Ireland and the devolved government in NI?

@implantsandaDyson

DGRossetti - the Emma deSouza case?

Yes, thanks. Takeway fact:

Does any of this have anything to do with Brexit?

It is a separate matter but related to Brexit given that the ruling comes against the backdrop of uncertainty around how Northern Ireland citizens will be treated after the UK leaves the EU given that people in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish, in turn, consider themselves EU citizens. DeSouza and human rights advocates in Northern Ireland claim that Brexit complicates matters because the automatic conferral of British citizenship on Irish citizens could be used to restrict and remove their access to EU rights and entitlements.
...

So it's entirely possible that getting Irish citizenship means nothing if the UK government ignores it in favour of your British citizenship.

It's so shockingly tone deaf. The duel citizenship agreement is coated in blood. It was one of the many compromises made under good Friday. The suggestion of manipulating that so your kids can work summers in Malaga in 18 years shows such a deep ignorance

I really wanted to do it, but my family were dead against the idea and I ended up giving in. My plan was to travel to NI by ferry at 35 weeks.

I wanted to give birth in NI, not the Republic, so that as well as being an Irish citizen, DD would have been a British citizen by birth as well as by descent. I believe that British citizens born abroad can’t always pass their British citizenship on to their own children. Also, I’m a UK taxpayer and don’t have health insurance in Ireland.

I really wish I’d managed to do it. In my case it would have been tough as I ended up having an emergency c-section. But the peace of mind afterwards would have been wonderful.

If you have a pps. Number it's free on the hse in the Republic if not you pay

I really wish I’d managed to do it. In my case it would have been tough as I ended up having an emergency c-section.

I really wish you had too. We’re really crying out to perform expensive surgeries here in NI. We just dont have enough of our own women needing access to that funding.

It's so shockingly tone deaf. The duel citizenship agreement is coated in blood. It was one of the many compromises made under good Friday. The suggestion of manipulating that so your kids can work summers in Malaga in 18 years shows such a deep ignorance

This all day long.
The ignorance and the arrogance of many British people to behave this way regarding and issue that has impacted and torn apart so many lives on the island of Ireland is absolutely disgusting.
Imperialism runs deep.

I really wish I’d managed to do it. In my case it would have been tough as I ended up having an emergency c-section. But the peace of mind afterwards would have been wonderful.

Why do you wish you’d done it?

Also my care was next to none because I have a high risk delivery/pregnancy I was in every 2 weeks for scans all free Ireland really isn't what you all think of course Irish people have access to health care!

I wouldn't want to give birth over there. I've heard it's quite backwards in terms of letting women have their rights in childbirth.

This thread is giving me the rage. F off the lot of you. Our hospitals are not here for your convenience or a bonus.

No, the CTA predates the EU and continues after it. British citizens are treated almost identically to Irish citizens in Ireland. Free maternity care still included.

Generally true, but there were a lot of adverts on the radio about making sure you switched your driving license over or it would be invalid post Brexit, so I'd worry about what else might come back to bite someone just hopping over from the UK for a while to give birth without doing all the rest of the stuff to become resident.

Chili whatever your name go fuck yourself backwards who do you think you are