Applying for citizenship

tivvo

I need to apply for my Irish citizenship as I've been residing in Ireland under my British passport. I'm a bit confused as to which category I should apply under though. I've been married to an Irish citizen for 20 years, have 2 Irish children, and have been living in Ireland for the past 19 years. Do I apply for citizenship through marriage (and will my eu citizenship be taken into account, therefore negating the need for the residency calculator/residency permission) or do I apply as an eu citizen? If applying based on my British citizenship, what happens when Brexit kicks in? Can I still apply as an eu citizen? Is there a 'grace' period on these applications? I don't want to lose my €175 application fee by applying under the wrong category Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Tia

victor8600

Logically, the citizenship through marriage is more suitable.
https://www.irishimmigration.ie/citizenship/become-an-irish-citizen-by-naturalisation/#Adult-EU

The residency calculator is for non-EEA/Swiss/etc citizens only.

dennyk

You'd qualify for citizenship via naturalisation based on your length of residence regardless of your marriage (assuming you've lived here for five full years out of the last nine and for the last full year prior to your application submission). As such, it's probably easier to apply based simply on your own residence, as that way you wouldn't need to submit all the additional documentation regarding your marriage itself. You still have to submit the same base form and documentation either way; the only thing the marriage aspect does is reduce the total time you need to have resided in Ireland from five years to three, so it doesn't help your application in any way.

tivvo

dennyk wrote: »

You'd qualify for citizenship via naturalisation based on your length of residence regardless of your marriage (assuming you've lived here for five full years out of the last nine and for the last full year prior to your application submission). As such, it's probably easier to apply based simply on your own residence, as that way you wouldn't need to submit all the additional documentation regarding your marriage itself. You still have to submit the same base form and documentation either way; the only thing the marriage aspect does is reduce the total time you need to have resided in Ireland from five years to three, so it doesn't help your application in any way.

Thanks for that.
How do I go about proving the residency of 5 years out of 9? I've definitely been here for the 19 years and have a mortgage and bills etc for that time, but we do travel to Australia every 4 years and take overseas holidays every year. However, I can't fill in the online residency calculator as I don't have any stamps in my passport because I'm an eu resident (well until Brexit kicks off at least). Has anyone spoken to the immigration department about applying? Are they helpful? Tia

dennyk

EU citizens don't need to use the calculator or submit copies of passport stamps, since, as you noted, they wouldn't have any. Here's what the application form says:

If you are an EU citizen for more than five years please submit proof of residence in the State
amounting to a total of five years in the last nine years, to include the year prior to application.
Please submit three different proofs of residence for each year showing name and address for
this period i.e. mortgage/rent agreement, household bills (gas, electricity, phone,
cable/satellite TV), bank statements, revenue letters, mortgage agreement, social welfare,
letter from employment, etc

As for holidays, the form does ask if you were absent from Ireland for more than six weeks per year in any of the last five years, and if so, you'll need to attach a document explaining the details of all of your absences and the reasons for them. Having longer absences is not necessarily automatically disqualifying, as far as I know, but it could result in a refusal if they indicate you might not be fully committed to living in Ireland full-time. (Honestly, though, I don't actually know if they even take that into account for EU citizens; while there's no explicit notice that the question itself doesn't apply to EU applicants, the "continuous physical residence in the State" subject isn't referenced in the explanatory instructions for EU citizens at the top of the form, only in the section for non-EU citizens...)

seamus

Yeah, I've spoken to a British woman who's been here for nearly two decades about this, and she found that there's broadly no difference between the marriage or residence applications. Same amount of headache and same cost. There's no "fast pass" for spouses.

tivvo

Thanks for the replies guys! I guess I'll just go down the spousal route if it's all the same headache.
Cheers