Scorecard - Residency Proofs

[Latium]

Hi all,

If someone could please enlighten me as to what constitutes a hospital/doctor attendance record - I have an account statement from my GP which shows for each year when I attended. Is this what they are looking for, or is it something more specific?

For the department of social protection annual statement - must there be payments to me in order for it to be valid, or could it be blank. I have to do more research on this one. I took the pup in 2020 for 2 months so that's the only thing I have from them for any year.

Do bin/broadband utilities not count for anything?

All of third level college attendance is virtual, is there any indication that this is less favourable for the points system?

Thank you for your time and help.

[meself2]

Hey! These are my suggestions, as I just applied recently, so can't be sure in any of that, unfortunately. Nevertheless, hope it helps!

For the department of social protection annual statement - must there be payments to me in order for it to be valid, or could it be blank. I have to do more research on this one. I took the pup in 2020 for 2 months so that's the only thing I have from them for any year.

I would personally assume you would have to show them you received some sort of money from them so it counts as a proof, as you would need to physically go to the post office to collect this money, meaning you were present there. For example, I never got any welfare, my page is blank, so from the point of view of a civil servant, how will that help to prove I am a resident here?

Do bin/broadband utilities not count for anything?

Looking around here, before the scorecard broadband with your name/address was fine combined with other utilities, not sure what's the status of it as of today. Same goes for the bins.

|You can always try and contact Citizensip directly with these questions.

[Latium]

Hey! These are my suggestions, as I just applied recently, so can't be sure in any of that, unfortunately. Nevertheless, hope it helps!

For the department of social protection annual statement - must there be payments to me in order for it to be valid, or could it be blank. I have to do more research on this one. I took the pup in 2020 for 2 months so that's the only thing I have from them for any year.

I would personally assume you would have to show them you received some sort of money from them so it counts as a proof, as you would need to physically go to the post office to collect this money, meaning you were present there. For example, I never got any welfare, my page is blank, so from the point of view of a civil servant, how will that help to prove I am a resident here?

Do bin/broadband utilities not count for anything?

Looking around here, before the scorecard broadband with your name/address was fine combined with other utilities, not sure what's the status of it as of today. Same goes for the bins.

|You can always try and contact Citizensip directly with these questions.

Hi meself, thank you for your response, I hadn't thought of how the social welfare payments would require claimants to physically be resident in order to obtain the support - great point.


Thanks for the linked post. It seems strange to me though that they specified electricity and gas utility bills acceptable forms of proof, but omit to mention broadband or domestic refuse collection.

I posed these questions to the citizenship tema via e-mail as their phone helpline has been suspended due to the pandemic.

Cheers

[OneWorld2122]

If p60 don’t contains address in it, will it still be counted as residency proof with 60 points ? Any idea ?

Earlier lot of employers provide p60 with no address only mentioned on it ( I know employment summary contains address)

[meself2]

Thanks for the linked post. It seems strange to me though that they specified electricity and gas utility bills acceptable forms of proof, but omit to mention broadband or domestic refuse collection.

I would agree Scorecard approach still needs a lot of improvement, but that is currently what we have to work with.

Speaking of college, I have no idea if that will affect the application in any way, but hopefully not. Scorecard system doesn't specify any additional requirements in terms of attendance as it does with school letters anyway, so I believe that'll be fine. Was it intended to be an online course or you applied for a course/started studies during Covid and they said it'll be online because of that?

[meself2]

If p60 don’t contains address in it, will it still be counted as residency proof with 60 points ? Any idea ?

Earlier lot of employers provide p60 with no address only mentioned on it ( I know employment summary contains address)

Good question. Can you obtain these same P60 forms with an address? If not, I'd write a cover letter that it is all you can give in terms of P60S and submit it as is. You can also submit both EDS and P60s for safety sake.
Once again, you can email the citizenship team and ask them.

[Nala2021]

I thought that social welfare payments, be it means tested or not, can be paid directly into your bank account, and you wouldn't need to collect at the post office anymore.

[meself2]

I thought that social welfare payments, be it means tested or not, can be paid directly into your bank account, and you wouldn't need to collect at the post office anymore.

Both are available I guess, I've seen people coming in and signing for their welfare payments in my local post office. On their website it sates that welfare can allow or not allow it, so might be for people who get it paid into your account there are other ways to check their residency.

[kaifushn1k]

Perhaps someone could clarify their interpretation of what's required under a Rent agreement registered with the local authority / AHB / PTB please as part of this scoreboard system. Would a simple rental agreement cosigned by you and the management company do in this case? If so how can one show that the lease was in effect for multiple years? If say you lived in the same place for 4 years you would likely only have one rental agreement signed at the very start with no indication of how long you stated at that place

[Nala2021]

Perhaps someone could clarify their interpretation of what's required under a Rent agreement registered with the local authority / AHB / PTB please as part of this scoreboard system. Would a simple rental agreement cosigned by you and the management company do in this case? If so how can one show that the lease was in effect for multiple years? If say you lived in the same place for 4 years you would likely only have one rental agreement signed at the very start with no indication of how long you stated at that place

A rental agreement on its own is a legally binding document and so, in theory, it should be enough to prove lawful tenancy and residency of someone applying for citizenship. There is no legal requirement from the tenant's side to register with RTB - that's the landlord's issue - and there is no legal penalty for the tenant either.

For the rental issue, I got letters from the management company that stated name and rental year(s) and so on for each year the contract ran for. This was additional to the initial, fixed term contract (which was for 12 months). I am awaiting to see the outcome of this, so it's not a concrete suggestion, just what I did.

[kaifushn1k]

Yeah that makes sense thanks. If you look at that scorecard table there's two items that are essentially the same
ie:
Current a/c Bank statements: For each of the required
number of years - annually Six consecutive months

and

Credit card statements: For each of the required number of
years - annually Six consecutive months

Both require Six consecutive months and both give you 50 points. Is the difference here that in the latter case it's a credit card specifically and not a debit card? Let's say we provide six month of bank statement and six month of debit card statement. Would that effectively be the same thing so you get 50 points in total or is it going to be treated separately so you get 50 points for each?

[naanikarum]

For the department of social protection annual statement - must there be payments to me in order for it to be valid, or could it be blank. I have to do more research on this one. I took the pup in 2020 for 2 months so that's the only thing I have from them for any year.

Do bin/broadband utilities not count for anything?

I got the following answer from Citizenship Info helpline. Now not sure if a Welfare statement showing zero payments is still a valid proof or not. If someone could enquire and post a response, we would have closure.

Thank you for your email.
All utility bills are acceptable proofs for residency one your name and
address are present on the bill.
1) Statement of contributions 2) Statement of Payments. Are both valid
proofs of residency
Regards

Citizenship Helpdesk
Team 4

[Nala2021]

A statement is a statement. A statement officially expresses information - which would reasonably mean that whether it is expressing a €0 payment per year, or €30,000 payment per year, it should stand for what it is. At the end of the day, INIS will ask for a statement of welfare payments in order to check. At that point, they do not know, beforehand, whether it will state €0 or not. Therefore, this shows that a statement will be of value either way.

[naanikarum]

Yes, That's my understanding as well regarding the Welfare statements. A statement showing no payments is still a statement.

But one question that the Citizenship info helpline didn't answer is "If we generate the welfare statements for a particular period, it shows the current address and not the address in the welfare records during that period (Assuming you moved houses). Are these statements still acceptable as proof of address/residency for that period?". To be fair, not many would have heard of these statements until they figured in the Scorecard. So chances are high that people are generating these statements for the first time. (They are not auto-generated at the end of the year).

[mentalmind]

Just change your address on welfare website and request a new statement. I asked one yesterday after reading this topic and it contains my name and address at first page. So if you change your address on mywelfare.ie then request statement for both participation and usage, Im sure it will contain your new address.

No direct answer to your question but when I showed my solicitor GP letters with outdated address, it was my previous home address, she wasn’t really keen about using those. So just try my method first, otherwise use the ones with your outdated address AND mention this situation in your cover letter.

As long as you explain yourself there will be a chance of acceptance, if you just use those letters without any explanation they might come back to you with questions.

[Nala2021]

I'm confused about your solicitor having an issue with official GP letters that stated your previous address. Were you needing to use these for the purpose of covering the 5 years in the citizenship application? What would be the issue with that? You would have a rental agreement, or mortgage statement or whatever, that would corroborate the address information on the GP, in order to cover the dates/years needed. This is as if your solicitor is saying that not only you need to be here for 5 years before applying, but you better stay in the same house, location, road and county throughout.

[Nala2021]

Yes, That's my understanding as well regarding the Welfare statements. A statement showing no payments is still a statement.

But one question that the Citizenship info helpline didn't answer is "If we generate the welfare statements for a particular period, it shows the current address and not the address in the welfare records during that period (Assuming you moved houses). Are these statements still acceptable as proof of address/residency for that period?". To be fair, not many would have heard of these statements until they figured in the Scorecard. So chances are high that people are generating these statements for the first time. (They are not auto-generated at the end of the year).

I should think that Welfare will have a record of a change of address (the one that someone requests in order to update a previous one), and so INIS will be able to check this if they want. At the end of the day, whatever payment you take will either be from a post office (from where you can keep receipts) or will go directly into your bank account (of which you need to provide bank account statements for anyway). I think the statement is also to check if what you say, actually matches the records.

[mentalmind]

I'm confused about your solicitor having an issue with official GP letters that stated your previous address. Were you needing to use these for the purpose of covering the 5 years in the citizenship application? What would be the issue with that? You would have a rental agreement, or mortgage statement or whatever, that would corroborate the address information on the GP, in order to cover the dates/years needed. This is as if your solicitor is saying that not only you need to be here for 5 years before applying, but you better stay in the same house, location, road and county throughout.

I was too lazy to update my address on GP bills and Dentist bill, so I told her if those would be okay and I think she preferred to choose electric bill, internet bill with my up to date address on it. I don't know which documents she picked but when I mentioned her about those ones with old address she wasn't keen. And yes I had tenancy agreements & previous address proofs showing that I lived at that address. I think she was just aiming for the smoothest application process so she didn't want to risk it. I gave her a big folder with documents in it and she sorted it all out by herself.

And also: you have to list all of the addresses you lived in your whole life (in the application form it says last 9 years or smth but evetting asks for whole address list) so they will see that I lived at that address for the time period I stated.

[Nala2021]

Mentalmind, I really do wish you the best with your application - however, there is a chance, as your solicitor should have already mentioned, that INIS can ask for whatever extra documents they want. Ideally, one should then feel comfortable to send everything and anything they can in order to defend the whole totality of their 5 years in the country. For the fact that your solicitor sorted everything out herself, with, I am assuming no say from yourself, I really hope she chose well for your sake and again, wish you the smoothest application.

[mentalmind]

Thanks Nala, I am waiting forward to hear about the updates of your application also as I just applied 1 week after you did (saw it on the timeline thread) so I hope our experiences will be similar (about applications being smooth and fast)

[jowatosath]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this question is off-topic but the last forum on references was already locked and I couldn't find any other open topic on references.

I know applicants are required to provide 3 Irish citizens as references. I wonder if those references should be Irish citizens by birth or can you provide naturalised Irish citizens (having a different nationality originally before becoming naturalised Irish citizens)?

Thanks for your help.

[Ola2022]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this question is off-topic but the last forum on references was already locked and I couldn't find any other open topic on references.

I know applicants are required to provide 3 Irish citizens as references. I wonder if those references should be Irish citizens by birth or can you provide naturalised Irish citizens (having a different nationality originally before becoming naturalised Irish citizens)?

Thanks for your help.

I believe it is irrelevant whether they are originally Irish or are Irish through naturalisation. However having an Irish person through birth as a referee may show a good level of integration into the society but It’s just an assumption from me.

[Dublin_Argo]

A statement is a statement. A statement officially expresses information - which would reasonably mean that whether it is expressing a €0 payment per year, or €30,000 payment per year, it should stand for what it is. At the end of the day, INIS will ask for a statement of welfare payments in order to check. At that point, they do not know, beforehand, whether it will state €0 or not. Therefore, this shows that a statement will be of value either way.

So I don't understand how a statement with zero payments is sufficient proof of residency. To test this idea, I just requested my partner's Payment Statement for a a period before he come to Ireland. I received it seconds later. The Payment Statement for the year he was *not* in Ireland is exactly the same as the Payment Statement for any of the years he was resident in Ireland and made zero payments.

What am I missing here?

Sorry if I'm asking a stupid question. This is all new to me and I'm trying to get my head around it.

[littlerr]

A zero value Statement of Payments is obviously not a valid proof. For any person who has not received social benefit payments before, they should use a Statement of Contributions instead. The statement can be requested from https://services.mywelfare.ie/en/topics ... -statement

The Statement of Payments can still be submitted if you have one. It will show that you have not received any social benefit payment in the last 3 years, as required by the naturalisation application.

The statement should look like this:

[Dublin_Argo]

Gotcha, that makes sense. Thank you.