A teenage girl and her mother have taken a High Court case against the State over the refusal of the Chief Registrar to change her mother's name on her birth certificate.
The woman, a Romanian national who has five Irish born children, recorded the wrong name on her first child's birth certificate.
Maria Caldaras, who cannot read or write, was living in Limerick 13 years ago but now lives in Dundalk.
She grew up in a Roma encampment, where she was known by a nickname. When she moved to Ireland she was given the wrong birth certificate, believing it to be her own.
Three years later, she discovered her real name and received her correct birth certificate. She had all her official documentation changed.
However, the Registrar of Births refused to change the name on the birth certificate of her first-born, Sara Stancu.
Her four other children, who were born after the discovery, have their mother's correct name on their birth certificates.
At the High Court today, lawyers for the woman and her daughter said the Registrar had misinterpreted his powers by refusing to change the name on the birth certificate.
Senior Counsel Garrett Simons said Mrs Caldaras had been forced to wait for five years for a decision, which was ultimately a refusal to change her daughter's birth certificate.
The case was first taken when she had difficulty obtaining a passport for Sara. The fact that a passport had now been secured did not alter the fact that her rights under the Constitution and European law were being infringed by the refusal, he said.
It also had implications for her daughter's education, as questions had recently been raised about the name on the birth certificate, the court was told.
Mr Simons said the Chief Registrar had refused to accept there had been an error of fact when the birth was registered.
The integrity of the registration system would not be affected by changing the birth certificate to reflect the correct name of the mother, he said, nor was there a public interest reason for the refusal.
He referred to the recent High Court decision in favour of a woman who used a surrogate to have her own name recorded on the birth certificate.
He said both parent and child had a right to have the correct identity of the parent recorded on the birth certificate.
This right was recognised under the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter.
Counsel for the State Eugene Regan said the case was grounded on the issue of a passport which had since been issued so it was therefore moot.
He said there was no action or interference by the State in the identity of the child, whose name and surname was correctly recorded.
A birth certificate was intended to be a snapshot of the situation at the time, he said, adding that Mrs Caldaras had chosen to use another name at the time of her daughter's birth when there were two possible names in use.
The President of the High Court said it was "difficult to understand why there was resistance to putting the correct particulars on the document".
However, Mr Regan said to "amend the register at will" would affect the integrity of the registration process. It was done in only the most limited cases, he said.
To retrospectively change it would create problems and potentially problems for the administration of justice and for the tracing of individuals.
"What if in five years time it is discovered there was another error and there was another name and there was a situation where all five of her children would have to have their birth certificates amended?" he asked the court.
He said the situation would be similar to having a name changed by deed poll which would not result in a birth certificate being changed.
Mr Justice Kearns observed that the child would be differently described from her siblings in terms of their mother's name and asked if that itself was not a significant factor.
Mr Justice Kearns reserved judgement in the case to next week.
