Coming back to Ireland after a few months away

[ajmm]

Hi all,

Just a question because after a heap of time trying to find a concrete answer,still haven´t found it.

I´m an Irish national, brought my Mexican wife into Ireland, December of last year (2016). She has her Permission to remain stamp in her passport dated til Nov 2019, (stamp 4) married to an Irish citizen, GNIB card, the whole schebang.

After 3-4 months of searching when we arrived, we just werent getting job offers, we had to start looking elsewhere, we had no other choice. We were offered jobs in Budapest, so we went, for a few months, got working, but now we wanna come back to Ireland.

I came home to Ireland just a few days ago for Xmas, my wife wants to come over too, we have both been putting out the CV´s again and thank the lord, the response is much better this time from employers in Ireland, so we wanna give it another bash.

I have read that if she had been in Ireland under the stamp4eufam (i.e under EU law) that there would be problems with coming back to Ireland after having been away for a few months,

But from what I understand, as she was here in Ireland under domestic law, I am anticipating things to be a bit more straight forward to come back. In a nustshell, we are still in matrimony and we would be living together and hopefully both working this time.

Anyone know more about it?

[Zoot7]

Given you don't need a visa to enter Ireland on a Mexican passport, I think if the Stamp 4 is still valid you should be able to just come back and pick up where you left off. Just show the Stamp 4 & GNIB card at the airport and all should be okay. You probably don't even need to re-register with the GNIB upon return either given the Stamp 4 is still valid.

The only potential complication would be upon applying for citizenship down the road. You would need to report the absence of however many months you've been away, and that would subtract from the reckonable residence.

This is all just what I think, I don't claim to be an expert here. I think the better thing would be to check with an Immigration Officier here to confirm, but I'd be suprized if the above is not the case.

[ajmm]

Hi there Zoot,

Great to hear a response from ya. Exactly what you have said is exactly what I have understood the situation to be, so that's pretty reassuring, like you said, I could maybe check with someone officially, thanks a bunch for the effort mate!