The tale of getting my birth certificate

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

It’s easy to criticise the State and bureaucracy but it often turns out that the individual is far more culpable than either the State or bureaucracy.

Indeed, from my life-long experience, I have been most times impressed with how the State manages our affairs.

I work for a State organisation and recently I was asked for my birth cert. That dreaded document that we all think we have somewhere at home. I spent the best part of two days looking for it. Nothing found. 

But I did find both my parents’ birth certs, both of whom were born in 1909. Watching the two-part series on the famine which was screened on RTE 1 it dawned on me when reading my parents’ birth certs that most likely their grandparents experienced the famine. That sent a shrill down my spine.

Anyway, no sign of mine. I was looking for it during the last lockdown. These days it’s difficult to find telephone numbers as it is expected that everyone is in possession of some sort of smart device and is connected to the internet. It so happens I am, so I was able to apply online. 

I knew all the required information, my name, my parents, my date and place of birth. I completed the form and paid the fee, pressed the button and off it floated. I’m told on the screen that I can expect my new birth cert to be issued within 30 working days.

Within seconds of pressing the send-button I receive acknowledgement with that all-important reference number.    

A week passes, no cert, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and still no cert. I go looking for the reference number but of course I can’t find it. I know it has to be ‘somewhere’. Eventually I find it and clearly I didn’t read the email carefully enough. It said 30 working days, which makes it over five weeks.

After a lengthy search I found the phone number and call them. Nope, I need to phone a different number. 

Eventually I get speaking to a most friendly person, who asked me for my reference number, which I proudly call out. She tells me that my birth cert had been issued the previous day. Wasn’t that a coincidence. Two days later it arrived in the post. 

It’s all so different from any birth cert I had ever seen before. The certificate is on special security paper, which incorporates a number of security features. 

Prior to October 1997 registered births did not provide a surname for the child, nor any former surname of the father nor the occupation and address of the mother. 

There is a covering letter with the birth cert explaining the changes that have been made since 1997. 

And then I spot a howler of an error. They, that is the HSE, the issuing authority, use that redundant apostrophe. For the plural of births they have birth’s. And it is on a paragraph heading. That’s not good enough.

But I’m wondering, why my employer would not accept my PPS card, my Passport, my Driving Licence. No, they wanted the one document I didn’t have. Typical.

The HSE thanked me for paying the €22 fee for the posted birth certificate but they only charged me €21, or at least that’s what my bank statement says. I’m not complaining.