Post
by McQueen » Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:39 pm
Update.
It's been a tense couple of weeks dealing with the embassy as they initially wanted us to apply as a de facto partnership under Irish national law. This would involve applying for a long stay join family entry visa which, according to the INIS website, could take up to 6 months to process. Such a long wait could have jeopardised the whole move to Ireland as I don't know if my partner could have dealt with our toddler on her own while I was working in my new job over there.
I sought independent legal advice and was told that, despite not being married, the EU treaty rights that I'm exercising in the UK can simply be transferred to Ireland, my home Member State, and my partner should be able to apply for an EU residence card when in Ireland. My partner's existing 'family member of an EEA national' card from the Home Office is proof me exercising my EU treaty rights and our son provides strong evidence of our durable relationship.
The first step was to make a short stay visa application at the embassy, but at the counter they insisted I needed to make a long stay join family visa application, albeit that it could probably be processed in a couple of months rather than 6. They said that as we're not married, a short-stay EU rights visa would actually take longer to process (the application couldn't qualify for accelerated processing). Confused, I decided not to make any application but to think about it and come back.
I ultimately decided that as the timing was critical, I should just work with the embassy and take their recommendation that the long stay entry visa would be processed quicker. So I came back to the embassy this week.
I had a happier outcome this time. The embassy had been in touch with the authorities in Dublin and it transpired that the de facto route wouldn't be open to us as we hadn't yet been cohabiting for 2 years (this requirement is now absolutely compulsory). But the EU Treaty Rights route is in fact available to us as EU law requires a durable relationship of 2 years duration (not necessarily 2 years cohabiting). What's more, my partner doesn't even need an entry visa as her existing EU residence card is valid for entry to Ireland.
So it was tense as we had conflicting messages from the embassy, but our case was new to them and they needed to dig into it. Fingers crossed the EU residence card application goes okay once we're in Ireland, but for now we're mightily relieved that there won't be a long wait for my partner to enter the country.
