Hello all, I’m trying to work out my eligibility to apply for Irish citizenship and I have a couple of questions regarding calculating reckonable residence as well as gaps in official stamps due to covid.
Quick overview is I’ve been in Ireland for 6 years and 2 months straight. The first chunk was 1 year on a working holiday visa for an internship (which I believe is not reckonable residence but I’m having trouble finding proof of exactly what stamp I had if someone has an idea on how to check that). Then I was on stamp 1 followed by 4 with work permits, the entirety has been at the same company. My understanding is from that perspective I have the 5 expected years, but there are a couple of complications:
1) I had an appointment to renew my GNIB card in late March 2020, and then offices closed due to Covid. In the end, I went through the renewal via online submission sending in mid-July, and by the time the full process ended I got my renewal and stamp in early October. I’m unclear on how to enter this part correctly on the “reckonable residence calculator”, but my hope is this should all be covered as not being a gap?
2) For the 42 days a year maximum outside the country, I have some questions on counting which I couldn’t find an official answer for:
a) Do I count within a calendar year for my total, or break my reckonable residence into 5 years and count within that?
b) I often did short weekend trips, do you count a day whenever you were out of the country at all in a 24h period, or if you were in Dublin + somewhere else on a day it doesn’t count? Between the previous question and this I wind up just around the limit of 42 days most years, so I’m a bit down to the wire...
c) I believe you can be excused for periods for work travel, but is there any experiences regarding other accepted reasons? For example, I spent a good chunk of time at home when a parent passed away (could include a death certificate for this longer absence), and another couple trips were to help an ageing family member relocate into assisted living.
d) Finally on these, in what form is it recommended to present my history of travel? A spreadsheet with a line entry for every trip with a duration in days?
Thanks very much for any help!
- FAQ
- Login
- Register
- Call Workpermit.com for a paid service +44 (0)344-991-9222