Good morning,
Well there are a few ways to immigrate to Ireland, but the quickest & easiest option is through descent, which you say you don't have. One route is the work authorization/visa option which is an employment scheme set up to target non-EU nationals who are skilled in a particular area of employment that is especially under-staffed here in Ireland. Jobs such as IT, medical fields, engineers, town planners, architects. This option is granted for a two year period and is renewable. I believe that it is obtained before you come here through the embassy in your home country, all you need is a written job offer from an Irish employer (but I'm not definate on the details, so best to check for sure). This work authroization/visa allows the employee to change employers as long as they stay within the same sector of work, eg a Dr. in Dublin changes to a postion as a Dr. in Cork.
The second choice is the work permit scheme headed under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment ( as is the work authorization/visa scheme) The work permit is applied for by the employer not the employee. The employer must prove to the Dept that no EU national from any EU country could be found that could do the job on offer and thus the employer had to look outside the EU for staff. The employer does this through nationally advertising the vacant position on FAS (the Irish employment people) and if no canidate answers the job opening in a month, then an offical letter will be written to the employer granting them the option to look outisde the EU. This letter also has a 3-month expiry date so the employer must work fast. Work permits are granted for a maximum period of 1 year and are renewable. A year-long work permit costs 500.00 Euro and is payable by the employer not the employee. It currently takes 8 weeks to process an application and you cannot work while you are waiting for a response. One permit is given per employee through the employer, so you can't work a part-time job on top of your full time job and work permits are not transferrable. So, if you get a work permit for a particular job and decide that you'd like to change jobs, the entire process starts again from the beginning......
The work permit scheme seems to be the most difficult route to take as it virtually legally binds you the the employer, so careful consideration is needed before you decide to go this way. There are news stories in the media regarding exploitation of foreign workers who are held under the work permit scheme. Some people are forced to pay for thier own permit, or are paid less then Irish co-workers and some people think that a permit can be bought upfront, apparently cases have been heard where foreigners are paying up to 5000.00 Euro for a 'work permit' only to arrive and be told at Dublin Customs that the 'permit' is useless.
Once your work authorization/visa or work permit is granted, you must present yourself at the Immigration authorities at the town police station or in Dublin to get your passport stamped with a 'leave to remain stamp' and get a photo-ID card. The presence of the stamp in your passport is needed as you must send a photocopy of it when you apply for work permit renewal.
Citizenship through naturalization is applied for after you have been living and working here legally for 5 years. Its an application form with no citizenship test or formal interview. It says on the application form that the process could take up to 18 months to finalize, so add on another year or so of getting a work permit/authorization renewal.
All formal details of work permits and work authorizations/visas are given on the Dept. of Enterprise, Trade and Employment webste
www.entemp.ie. Citizenship information is given on
www.justice.ie and keep an eye on the newspapers over here on
www.unison.ie, who knows, maybe rules will change?
Best of luck,
Maria
