Stamp 4 Renewal

CPTM

Hi all, my wife has a stamp 4 residence card and has found it very difficult to get a renewal appointment online. We had been trying since Christmas. She finally secured a place but it is one month after her current one expires. Do you think that will cause any issues when renewing or when it comes to an application for Irish citizenship in a few years? She is currently working full-time thanks to the stamp 4. Do you think that there will be any issues there?

We have tried phoning/emailing the department to no avail.

Bob24

I assume you are an Irish citizen which is the basis for her stamp 4?

If yes, while not 100% sure I don’t think the timing gap would cause any issue to renew her stamp 4 as the government well knows the appointment system is not working very well and causing this type of delays.

However if her employer does things by the books (not all employers do), they will see that her previous stamp 4 is about to expire and ask her to provide the new one. And if they are made aware that she doesn’t have a new one they are likely to put her on a mandatory unpaid leave until a new stamp 4 is provided; to avoid any legal risk on their side.

And one more thing: unless it changed in the past couple of months, they sometimes release a very small number of appointments for the same or the next day. This are really very few and basically requires a to constantly refresh the website which is not fun - but if you are very pressured it might be worth checking.

CPTM

Bob24 wrote: »

I assume you are an Irish citizen which is the basis for her stamp 4?

That's correct. Strangely enough we just received a response to our emails saying that she is allowed to stay in the country but she is not permitted to work. It's an absolute nightmare for us. She works full-time in an IT company with on going projects and client relationships. Does anyone have any advice? Her stamp 4 expires next week and the appointment is in June. We've tried phoning, emailing but it takes them a month to respond.

Bob24

CPTM wrote: »

That's correct. Strangely enough we just received a response to our emails saying that she is allowed to stay in the country but she is not permitted to work. It's an absolute nightmare for us. She works full-time in an IT company with on going projects and client relationships. Does anyone have any advice? Her stamp 4 expires next week and the appointment is in June. We've tried phoning, emailing but it takes them a month to respond.

I know it’s not very motivating advice, but really do try to refresh the website constantly - you might get an immediate appointment (first hand experience of someone I know).

Also, my advice would be to disclose it to her employer and to think of the best way to address this together with her management and HR before the Stamp 4 is actually expired. If it is a large employer (especially multinational company) they might have someone who can assist with this, and they should appreciate an advance notification rather than finding out about it after the fact (a well managed company will have an automated system or some tracker for HR to ask non EU employees for their new residence card when the old one has expired; and it could be awkward for everyone involved including your wife if HR and her management find out in 2 weeks time that they have an employee on the ground with clients which might not be allowed to work in Ireland).

CPTM

Bob24 wrote: »

I know it’s not very motivating advice, but really do try to refresh the website constantly - you might get an immediate appointment (first hand experience of someone I know).

Also, my advice would be to disclose it to her employer and to think of the best way to address this together with her management and HR before the Stamp 4 is actually expired. If it is a large employer (especially multinational company) they might have someone who can assist with this, and they should appreciate an advance notification rather than finding out about it after the fact (it could be awkward for everyone involved including your wife if HR and her management find out in 2 weeks time that they are potentially illegally employing her and sending her to clients).

It's good advice. We will tell her employer. The only concern is that she has to cancel her current appointment in order to search for another one. So we could be left with nothing. After months of trying many times a day, we're not hopeful of getting another appointment in the next 3 days.

CPTM

We took the risk of cancelling the old appointment and searching for a new one. Many appointments were available for this Saturday. Perhaps they reserve a set of slots for people whose stamp 4s are just about to expire. Thanks everyone for your input.

Bob24

CPTM wrote: »

We took the risk of cancelling the old appointment and searching for a new one. Many appointments were available for this Saturday. Perhaps they reserve a set of slots for people whose stamp 4s are just about to expire. Thanks everyone for your input.

All sorted then :-)