Entry clearance (WP) after having been refused entry ROI

[jivebunny]

Was wondering if anyone has some knowledge of what kinds of things are taken into account besides ascertaining that all the usual information is legit.

Basically I've got my work permit and now need to apply for entry clearance. However, at the end of my stay as a student in a UK a month or so ago, I was refused entry into the Republic of Ireland and as a result overstayed my visa by a week. Does anyone know how this would affect my application?

The details are as follows (listed chronologically):
- I was waiting for my employer to let me know if I should return home for out of country application or remain in the UK for in country. After weeks of asking them, they finally announced 4 days before my student visa was to expire that I should leave the UK first.

- At this point, I was unable to afford a ticket back home before the expiry of my visa (trying to buy a ticket halfway round the world with such short notice is expensive!) and thus I planned to leave the UK to Ireland (which was the cheapest place to fly to) and return for a visitors visa, unknown of the Common Travel Area thing. I actually asked for advice from the International Students office and they checked with UKcosa and told me that it was ok. At this point I booked my flight ticket back to my home country as well as travel arrangements to Dublin.

- On the day that my visa was due to expire, I flew into Dublin and was refused entry and got sent back to the UK the next morning on the grounds that they could not give me even a visitors visa to Ireland as my UK visa had expired and they would be giving me extra leave to be in the UK. I did not realise that there were no passport controls coming in from Ireland.

- I finally left the UK to come to my home country 8 days after my student visa had expired. In that time I was acting as I would have on a tourist visa and did not take up any employment, etc. Leaving from Heathrow Passport Controls only glanced at my details page and did not note that I had overstayed my visa.

Now that I need to apply for entry clearance, there appear to be 2 'black marks' on my immigration history: refusal of entry into Ireland, and a minor overstay in the UK. Both of these were unintentional due to an error in judgement (as well as lack of specific knowledge on the UK-Ireland thing and erroneous advice given to me), not to mention the original problem which was how late that my employer got back to me to tell me that I should leave the UK.

How will this affect my entry clearance application?

I believe that for all other intents and purposes I should have no problems with other parts of the application and relevant documents. Also, I have a letter from the people who gave me the erroneous advice explaining the situation.

[VictoriaS]

Explain what happened, but I doubt this will affect the application at all.


Victoria