Naturalisation/citizenship for spouse

spaceboynz

I'm Irish and, having lived here for over 3 years with my non-EU wife, she can now apply for naturalization.

Is anyone able to give a rough indication of how long this process currently takes? Is it months or years?

Apologies if this is the wrong forum.

Thanks in advance.

feest

I think it takes years--18 to 22 months last I heard.

I submitted about seven months ago (based on five year residency, not marriage) and my return paperwork included the above timeline plus a line that extremely clear-cut applications may be processed faster.

Supercell

I knopw several people doing this and that have gone through it, 2 years seems to be the norm (if all goes without a hitch..yes it seems like a joke but its not)

spaceboynz

Hi there,

Thanks for the responses.

Do you think employing the services of an immigration lawyer would help speed things up?

Thanks.

turbodiesel

I know someone who works there. Don't bother with Lawyer, The decision is purely based on facts. ie length of time married and in country, abiility to financially support oneself, clean criminal record both from home country and ireland. I've heard of people getting refused for not paying a speeding/seat belt fine. They regard the criminal bit as a really black or white issue. no grey areas. Either you totally obey the laws of the land or your a criminal, so keep within the law and you'l be OK.

Abed

turbodiesel wrote: »

I know someone who works there. Don't bother with Lawyer, The decision is purely based on facts. ie length of time married and in country, abiility to financially support oneself, clean criminal record both from home country and ireland. I've heard of people getting refused for not paying a speeding/seat belt fine. They regard the criminal bit as a really black or white issue. no grey areas. Either you totally obey the laws of the land or your a criminal, so keep within the law and you'l be OK.

Well, as the title indicates the staff of INIS is not the most competent crowd you would come across! I applied 3 years ago based on marriage to an Irish citizen (born and bred Irish) and have a daughter born here who is a citizen of no other country but Ireland and the second is on the way. never received a single euro from the state, work full-time an earn 46.000 per annum and pay 1100+ every month in tax and income levy, hold two degrees from Ireland including a Master of Laws degree, no trouble with the law, not even a parking ticket throughout t my 6 years in this country I even applied and was successful in the Garda reserve interviews and test. nothing has been done yet, the answers I got from contacting them and from a parliamentary question by my local TD is CUT AND PAST cliché that is on their website, I called last week and was told its ongoing and when asked for further details the lady hanged up on me!!!

The local Kebab shop guy got it in two years no links to Ireland and not a word of English!!!

it takes 6 months in the UK, 4 months in NZ and OZ ...

this is something I will be telling my grandchildren about.

tatli_lokma

Abed wrote: »

it takes 6 months in the UK, 4 months in NZ and OZ ...

however you have to be married 5 years before you can even apply, so much the same really...
and I have heard similar stories from the UK of people having to wait up to 2 years - its all down to who's desk your application lands on

Supercell

Some quite exciting news today for those of us whom this issue effects:-

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/shatter-citizenship-takes-too-long-2805579.html

The justice minister said he had slashed the huge backlog of citizenship applications since coming to office and expected to have it completely cleared by spring next year. There are still 13,500 applications awaiting decisions for more than six months.

There are also plans to recruit more people under the new government internship programme to help speed up the naturalisation process, he revealed.

Best of luck to anyone here waiting for their application or their loved ones

Supercell

I just noticed that there is a press release on the INIS website too dated 16th June stating

persons applying for citizenship will be given a decision on their application within six months

- Minister Shatter introduces major changes to citizenship application processing regime