Foreign Birth Registration?

Thanks PasadenaTom,

Looks like we might have different lead times based on our respective locations, and the fact that you sent yours directly to Dublin, and mine has gone through the London Embassy. Good luck with yours - seems like you are fairly far down the process so hopefully it comes through soon!

I guess the best case in this scenario is to just wait 3-4 months and inquire to see if anything has progressed with the application.

You're right though, it is quite exciting gathering all of the information needed - I have particularly enjoyed getting all of the birth, marriage, death certificates etc as I find them fascinating.

All the best. Hopefully in ~6 months time I'll have a good update!

13th February 2018 = Confirmation that documents have been received (London embassy)

4th July 2018 = Email confirmation that Inhave been entered into the FBR and i’m an Irish citizen (cool).

Good luck!



Bye......

In brief, we have applied for citizenship through descent for my 9 years old son however we are unable to get copies of his father (due to a life-changing car accident) or grandfathers passports. I asked before starting the application process if there were alternatives as we had no way of getting the grandfathers passport as we did not have contact due to domestic violence. We were advised to get an affidavit describing the issue.We sent an affidavit as advised several months later. ( It took time to order the relevant paperwork )but have been told this is not suitable as the rules have changed since we made our initial query. My application has now been denied. We can get great grandparents passports with ease, grandmothers (not born in ireland) grandfathers brother, just not his grandfather. They dont seem bothered about his father as we have a copy of the court order. HELP!

That's quite odd because I was advised by a consulate that:

"In the absence of a current photo ID of your father you can make a statutory declaration and explain why you are unable to provide the ID.
The original statutory declaration must be submitted with your application.

That was sent by E-mail on July 1st.

My situation is similar to yours but I am only short my father's passport. My Irish grandparent has passed away. Also my situation is that my father is contactable but just can't be bothered. I had to go to court to get my Lithuanian citizenship and though that involved my mother's side of the family, as I am in Asia he had to do a lot of legwork in terms of communication and gathering documents. After that, he doesn't want to be involved in another one.

If the DFA reject my application, I will definitely contest it in court. Demanding the private (non public record) document of a 3rd party for a citizenship application puts you at the mercy of their consent. Nowhere in the legislation is consent stated as a perquisite of citizenship by descent. I have a feeling that the DFA will fail on the balance of probabilities to establish that A) I am not descended from an Irish grandparent born in Ireland prior to 2005 or B) that the demand for a parental passport / photo ID is a reasonable stipulation given that death certificates can be used in the case of people that have passed away and C) that they have applied their policy in a consistent and evenhanded way whereby all applicants received the same treatment and were offered the same information.

In my experience of dealing with the Lithuanian migration office, they did not even really try to win the case and I was missing several documents. Bureaucracies often deal badly with the public based on the assumption that they can get away with it. However, litigation usually changes their perspective somewhat.

I'm a similar situation regarding documents. I have not yet applied, still gathering docs.

My Dad's mother was Irish born. I'm estranged from all of my Dad's side of the family, he left my mother when I was very young, never heard or seen him since, so I cannot get a copy of his passport. Was planning to produce an affidavit explaining this...

My Grandmother married 4 times from what I have discovered. She appears to be alive from my research, no death certificate identified. As I'm estranged from her also, I cannot get a passport copy from her.

Producing an affidavit to explain both my Father and my Grandmother's absence of passport documents may be a bit too far for the DFA? I am not shy to challenge it in Court/Appeal as like you say, it is clear from the documents trail that I am entitled to Irish citizenship and the requirement of passport or death certificate seems almost unnecessary quite frankly.

Another timeline from a new Irish citizen:

January 23: Submitted application online
January 30: Documents received (London)
June 7: Additional details requested regarding witness
June 13: Acknowledgement of witness details
June 26: Added to FBR
July 12: Documents and certificate received through post

164 days from receipt of documents to certificate

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Mon May 07, 2018 11:39 am

pixie1230 wrote: ↑

Mon May 07, 2018 6:45 am

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Sun May 06, 2018 11:56 pm

pixie1230 wrote: ↑

Sun May 06, 2018 7:10 am

Did they tell you what’s the reason for the delay?
Are u and ur wife irish thru naturalisation??

I am Irish through naturalization and living in Ireland and my wife is non eu citizen living in our home country with baby.

Ohh we are the same, I am an non eu, and got my citizenship via marriage. The only difference is my husband is irish by blood and he is in Ireland too like me. So let’s see their basis. I’m just trying to figure out and I’m thinking what could be the reason why some is getting a delay even if we pass all the requirements.
Uggh! I just want to get over this! I’ll let u know as soon as i hear anything. As of now, still nothing aside from what they told my husband on our last email.

Wish you best of luck , if they say you will hear before end of May then its not too long left , wish you all the best with it . do let us know if you hear anything. cheers

Hey Mark did you get any update ?

I found this thread very useful for giving me an estimate of how long I was going to have to wait, so I've registered to give my timeline (I'm from the UK so was dealing with the Irish Embassy in London):

I sent my application off and made payment on 20th January 2018.

I got an emailed confirmation of receipt of my documents on 29th January.

Yesterday (14th July) I phoned the foreign birth register number (which someone quoted on the preceding page of this thread) to check progress. They transferred my call to a different office which dealt with applications which had been submitted via the London embassy. I was informed that my application had been processed, i.e. I was now an Irish citizen, but that due to a high volume of applications, it might still take a few weeks for them to return my papers and whatever certificate I'm going to receive. I checked, and was told that I couldn't start my passport application until I'd physically received that certificate.

So in my case, it took 5 month and 3 weeks, but I still have to wait for the certificate to arrive in the post.

The only other thing of interest about my application is that my Grandfather's birth either wasn't officially registered, or that registration has been lost in the system. I therefore had to register his birth myself which meant I had to:

1. Get the General Records Office to carry out a search and provide an official 'no record found' certificate. (There's a fee for this - something like 20 Euros.)
2. Identify where/when my Grandad was baptised (using online church records which I found via familysearch.org This involved a lot of research and searching through online scans of old church baptism registers from the 1880s!
3. Write to the Parish priest and request a baptism certificate, providing the historical church baptism record I'd found online.
4. Send this baptism certificate off to the Civil Registration Service (in Roscommon) to request a Late Registration of his birth. This also required a notarised declaration form, marriage details of his parents and his death certificate.
5. Once his birth had been registered, I then had to apply to the General Records Office and purchase a long form copy of his birth certificate.
6. Job done - that was the key document I needed and I didn't have any problems or queries with my FBR application.

I have been watching other people's time lines on here so felt I should register and put my own FBR time line:
22/3/18: Online line application complete (based on deceased paternal grandfather born in Ireland)
5/4/18: Confirmation email that info received in Dublin
21/6/18: Entered on FBR
2/7/18: Date of cover letter
17/7/18: Letter with cert and original docs received in Australia (Post code miss typed so not sure if this slowed things at all).

My time time seems very fast, I had all the normal issues of misspelt names and non matching dates but was not asked for any further info.

Little Spud

littlespud99 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:14 am

My time time seems very fast, I had all the normal issues of misspelt names and non matching dates but was not asked for any further info.

Little Spud

Congratulations! And thank you for your timeline.

A few weeks ago, someone reported that they emailed DFA, and they were told it was now taking 4-5 months. I hope that your experience is a sign that their application logjam is even further dissipated. It also helps dispel one of my concerns. I wondered if they might be giving priority to applicants living in Ireland, or those submitting applications via the London Embassy. But the fact that you had a fairly quick turnaround to Australia is a good sign. I'm in the U.S. And my application was received in Dublin on 16/4/18. That's only 12 days after yours was received. Keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe it's time to get my passport photos taken, so I can get that application in the post right away.

Congratulations again!

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

Yes same here
Applied on 6th of June 2017
Additional docs 26th feb submitted on 4th of march
Still in a process....

Fanikhan15 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:15 pm

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

Yes same here
Applied on 6th of June 2017
Additional docs 26th feb submitted on 4th of march
Still in a process....

They had asked me additional docs at 8th Sept 2017 and i have provided at 22nd sept. since then it is under management review and no response.
your one is also so called management review?

Hello to everyone in this group. I am following this discussion for last few months and I must say that this group is the best, positive and most useful in the world of internet for this topic. I got lots of information from this discussion. My grandmother was born in Dublin in 1911 so I collected all required documents from different places. It took me 3 months to arrange all these. And on 14th July 2018,I applied for FBR online and submitted my fees 278 euros and on 16thJuly I posted my application to Ireland Embassy London as I live in England and they received my documents on the next day. I want to share one thing with you that I enquired from the Embassy that I have 3 different bank accounts in 3 different banks so can I use them as my 3 proves of address they replied that "as long as they are 3 different banks, you can use as 3 proves of address." I hope this information maybe helpful for anyone. It's only start for me and I know I have to wait abou 6 to 9 months as I learnt from this group experience so Keeping my fingers crossed. Good luck for everyone who is waiting for their Post. I will keep updating if I hear anything from them. Bye

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:22 pm

Fanikhan15 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:15 pm

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

Yes same here
Applied on 6th of June 2017
Additional docs 26th feb submitted on 4th of march
Still in a process....

They had asked me additional docs at 8th Sept 2017 and i have provided at 22nd sept. since then it is under management review and no response.
your one is also so called management review?

Same reply since May...

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

19 months ago application submitted , still in process , bastards are even not rejecting application to finish the play .

Timeline for a London-based application via London Embassy:

We received no unsolicited updates / emails other than the first email receipt from the online application submission process.

29th January, 2018: Online application form submitted

7th February, 2018: Posted and received at London Embassy

3rd July, 2018: Entered into the FB register (unbeknownst to us)

8th July, 2018: Emailed London DFA to ask about status.

10th July, 2018: Received emailed response: "Your application has been sent to Dublin and is at an advanced stage of processing on the system. The FBR process takes approximately six months to complete from date of receipt here in the Embassy."

19th July, 2018: Received signed-for mail including FBR certificate and all original documents. They included a passport application form.

So, all-in, 163 days, or about 5 1/2 months.

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:08 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

19 months ago application submitted , still in process , bastards are even not rejecting application to finish the play .

Yes... same here... they are not accepting and rejecting... just holding in air... there is no process of escalation unfortunately....

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:14 pm

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:08 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

19 months ago application submitted , still in process , bastards are even not rejecting application to finish the play .

Yes... same here... they are not accepting and rejecting... just holding in air... there is no process of escalation unfortunately....

Did you give you any particular reason for delaying ?

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:50 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:14 pm

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:08 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 4:03 pm

Hello Guys,

My application is under process for more then a year.
I have submitted June02-2017 and as of yet, no result ( London Embassy)

Anybody has counter similar problem?
Thanks

19 months ago application submitted , still in process , bastards are even not rejecting application to finish the play .

Yes... same here... they are not accepting and rejecting... just holding in air... there is no process of escalation unfortunately....

Did you give you any particular reason for delaying ?

Nope. they are saying since 9 months that it is under management review and we are checking the documents. did they provide you any particular reason?

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:59 pm

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:50 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:14 pm

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 1:08 am

19 months ago application submitted , still in process , bastards are even not rejecting application to finish the play .

Yes... same here... they are not accepting and rejecting... just holding in air... there is no process of escalation unfortunately....

Did you give you any particular reason for delaying ?

Nope. they are saying since 9 months that it is under management review and we are checking the documents. did they provide you any particular reason?

Since March 2018 they are saying to me , we are consulting / inquiring with other Irish departments , I have no objection for their consultation as they can consult with anyone they want , my concern is time they are spending on consultation , in these days fast communication systems you can not spend 5 months in consultation , last Wednesday I was told same consultation process is ongoing .

I thought I would post the timeline for my successful FBR application, in case there is anyone else waiting in similar circumstances to me (British citizen resident in Spain).

October 11th 2017: Online application submitted credit card payment made. The same day, I handed in all the supporting documentation by hand at the Irish embassy in Madrid. The man there checked all the documents and told me that my birth certificate was the “short form” one, not the “long form” one needed for the application. He told me that I could come back when I had the correct birth certificate and it would not delay the process. I asked him how long it might take and his exact words were: “At least six months. We’ve been inundated with applications from people like you” (British citizens living in Spain).

October 18th 2017: One week later, I handed in the correct birth certificate, which had arrived from the UK, at the embassy.

Nothing. Until…

July 4th 2018: I received an e-mail from the Irish Embassy in Madrid confirming that my application had been approved and that I would receive the certificate, along with all the original documents, in the following days.

July 12th 2018: The certificate arrived at my address in Madrid with passport application form and all original supporting documents. The date of registry in the FBR was June 19th 2018.

In total, eight months from application to entry in the registry. It is possible that my application may have taken longer due to the fact that my mother changed her name in the 1970s before I was born. Luckily, she did it by deed poll and had all the original documents (my mother's name on the FBR certificate is her birth name, not her current one).

I hope this info might be useful for anybody else in a similar situation, and good luck to all applying!

Aidan

Posting my experience of the FBR in case it helps others in similar circumstances. My mother was born to an Irish father, but was then adopted by her maternal (English) grandparents. I applied through London (UK citizen and resident) on 3 July 2017 and received confirmation via email of Irish citizenship through FBR on 18 July 2018, i.e. 1 year and 2 weeks.

3 July 2017: submit online and send docs to London Embassy
11 October 2017: request from DFA for copy of court order relating to my mother's adoption (in 1941). This could not be sourced, but working through an adoption agency, I managed to get confirmation from the courts service of the lineage from my grandfather to my mother. This was a long process that needed a lot of pushing, and basically held things up for 6 months.
24 April 2018: confirmation of lineage from courts service forwarded to DFA
2 July 2018: requested update from DFA on progress
3 July 2018: email received from DFA confirming application still in process in Dublin
18 July 2018: confirmation of Irish citizenship through FBR received by email, and awaiting certificate and return of docs (stated as 2-3 weeks).

I hope that is of use/interest.

Hi folks, I've submitted my FBR application (on the basis of my Irish grandparent) and will hopefully be posting all of the documents to the London embassy on Tuesday. Excited to finally be on the road to Irish citizenship after a good few years of meaning to do it

I've double and triple checked my documents and hopefully they don't need anything else from me; hoping I'm entered onto the register in time for me to have a passport by Brexit day!

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:37 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:59 pm

bluemoon2 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:50 am

Mak2386 wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 4:14 pm

Yes... same here... they are not accepting and rejecting... just holding in air... there is no process of escalation unfortunately....

Did you give you any particular reason for delaying ?

Nope. they are saying since 9 months that it is under management review and we are checking the documents. did they provide you any particular reason?

Since March 2018 they are saying to me , we are consulting / inquiring with other Irish departments , I have no objection for their consultation as they can consult with anyone they want , my concern is time they are spending on consultation , in these days fast communication systems you can not spend 5 months in consultation , last Wednesday I was told same consultation process is ongoing .

I have called them again today.... still same update.. under management review... and they dont know how much time more they need.... its totally a .................K