Re-entry visa

Hi everyone,

I kindly need your advice. I am a Kenyan married to an Irish and we have a 3 month old daughter. I have been leaving in country for 4 months and hold a stamp 4 visa. We left for a short holiday to kenya and i dint realize i needed to apply for a re entry visa before leaving the country.

What should i do now that i already out of Ireland and i am meant to travel back with my wife on the 1St of may. Will I be allowed back into the country? Do i need to apply for a visa in my home country?

Thanks a million for your advice.

I’m unsure if coming to Ireland is visa free for Kenyan Nationals. However, most airlines may not allow you to board without a valid re-entry visa and GNIB card. Based on my personal experience they always ask to see your reentry visa to Ireland. I will recommend you contact the local Irish embassy in Kenya for a conclusive advise. I also found this link http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/vi ... -emergency. Your situation was highlighted in the first point in the link provided.

http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/vi ... -emergency

INIS wrote:If you leave without a re-entry visa or if you do not return within the period shown on your visa, you must apply again for a new long stay or short stay visa from abroad to come back to Ireland.

Officially you've no choice but to apply for a Join Family long stay visa via the Irish Embassy in Kenya. They quote waiting times of up to 6 months in the case where the sponsor is an Irish citizen, if you're lucky it should be sooner than that given you've already been living together in Ireland.

http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Join%20Family

INIS wrote:Sponsor is an Irish citizen

You can expect that you application will be dealt with within 6 months of receipt of all required documentation.

However you could try talking to the Irish Embassy in Kenya to see if there is any other option available to you.

Thank you very much for the advice. I managed to go to the Irish Embassy in Kenya and they informed me the process would take 6-10 working days. I hope I doesn't take longer because according to my GNIB i already have the permission to be In Ireland until February next year.

Is there a possibility that everything could be cancelled and I have to start all over again?

Sorry for the late reply.

You should be okay by February next year I would imagine. Try not to worry too much, the last thing you need is to be worrying about stuff that hasn't happened yet.

On that note, I remember asking the Irish embassy in Singapore about how long the spousal visa process would take, when me and my wife were looking at applying for it. (My wife is from the Philippines, I'm Irish)

The answer that I got was that if you were living together currently or had been living together in the recent past either in Ireland or any other country, the visa was approved locally at the embassy in Singapore and would only take 2-3 weeks max for a final decision.

However, if you both had got married and one of you was living in Ireland while the other was living in their own country and you never had lived together before, then the decision would go to Dublin and would take 6 months minimum. You're not in that situation having lived together in Ireland previously so it should be okay if they're only saying 6-10 working days.