Work Permits Ireland

Unexpected

I am writing this on behalf of one of my best buddies who is a white South African male aged 19 living in Ireland.

His dad lives over here and within 1 year he will have citizenship as he has been here for 4 years.

However my mate was over here for 2 years, went back for 10 months to SA and has returned again to Ireland. Basically he has a girlfriend here and that is his main motive for being back here.

Anyway, he needs a work permit to get a job as he is losing his head not being able to work over here. He is only 19 and has not yet been to college but intends to go in September which will mean he will not need a work permit as such to work. However being Non-Eu, he needs to work to get the money to be able to put himself through college.

He has no criminal record, or anything like that and is a normal bloke aged 19 except he is South African in Ireland. He really needs a work permit badly or else he will have to return home for good as he will not be able to rely on his dad over here to support him. He has ancestry in Scotland but apparently that only allows him to be able to live and work in Scotland. He still has a few months left on his normal permit thing before he has to leave Ireland again.

is there anything that can be done for this guy? Surely he can get a work permit cant he? He has applied for jobs but they are looking for people with work permits. How do the Chinese and Japanese over here get jobs all over the place, surely all of them can not be students? Any ideas? Have you ever been in a similar experience? Any help, greatly appreciated as we are running out of them...

halkar

There is good info in Oasis site about work permits. I think many jobs in shops are goes through agencies whom sorts the work permits out. It might help approaching few shops and finding out some details as this might be the quickest way of getting work permit. Otherwise he has to find a job first and they have to apply for the work permit.

netman

To get a work permit you need to find an employer who will sort out the paperwork for you, that's the only way it goes. If he's 19 and unskilled (ie. no college degree etc) I hate to say it but any employer will more likely take someone who can start tomorrow rather than spend the next few weeks/months sorting out his work permit. Not to mention the costs for doing so.

Another way to be allowed to work here is to get married. I wouldn't advise it if he's 19

The simplest way is to take up an english language course in a place that sorts out your work permit. When you're a student in Ireland you're allowed to work part-time, even if you're non-EU. I met someone who's working 8 hours a day "part-time" in Easons, so the term "part time" is taken very loosely.

That won't get you a well payed job, but will allow you to stay in the country and earn some money to cover the costs. Going to college after that will sort him out for the next few years, and by then he'll probably be resident for 5 years and can apply for Irish citizenship, if he really wants to.

Just a word of advice. A friend of mine, also non-EU national, completed her 5-year residence in Ireland and submitted all the paperwork for Irish citizenship. That was last year, and she still hasn't heard anything back from them. I guess it's like any other government department, takes months/years to hear back from them. I'm just saying this to set your expectations, there's a whole process behind it. It's not as simple as reaching the magical 5 years and being given the Irish passport.

Unexpected

Thanks for the info. Ill pass it on to him. Any more keep it coming. This really is good news.