The Department of Health has said it has no immediate plans to change the way birth certificates are issued, following exposure of their use in a fake marriages trade in Britain.
An ITV television programme screened earlier this week revealed that people using false Irish birth certificates were "marrying" illegal immigrants so that they could obtain citizenship.
One Irish woman shown was said to have taken part in about 20 "fake" marriages to get cash to support her drug habit. In Monday's Sun newspaper, the journalist Paddy Clancy wrote that the woman, Tara, was his daughter.
He said she had a heroin addiction but had now been taken to a "safe place" and was about to undergo treatment. E radio, said his daughter had given her consent for him to write about the family's experiences in the Sun.
The television programme World In Action said there had been nine arrests in London as a result of the British police investigation into the marriage scheme. It said Irish birth certificates were obtained by the gang organising the scheme, so that Irish "brides" would be available for register office marriages to non-EU nationals.
The men seeking EU citizenship by this route were charged several thousand pounds by the gang, while the women taking part were paid a few hundred pounds for each marriage.
The Department said access to birth certificates was one of the areas of the system currently being reviewed by the Department. But it had "no plans for any changes in the immediate future", a spokesman said. Once the review was complete, a decision could then be taken as to whether the system should be reformed.