Naturalisation application delay

Hello All,

Looking for advice from community. Thanks for your help!

Timeline:

Apr 2022: I applied for Irish citizenship by naturalisation. It was a clean application without any convictions at the time of submission. Never been in any trouble.

November 2022: I had a serious lapse in judgement and was involved in a drunk driving incident and was charged with the same.

I made the citizenship division aware that I was charged with drunk and dangerous driving in court and decision awaited in court and sent them documents to that effect which they acknlowgeded receipt of.

September 2023: I plead guilty in court and received a 2 year ban and fine. No custodial sentence.

I again wrote to the naturalisation team and sent them updated copy of the naturalisation form noting my change in circumstance ( As this was not noted when I submitted the form because it hadn't happened yet) The department also acknowledged receipt of the updated form.

November 2023: I received the link to Garda eVetting in and promptly completed the same and self declared the convictions. The eVetting was completed and disclosure viewed in Nov 10, 2023

I have not received any updates on the decision on my application in terms of a approval / refusal since Nov 2023.

Should I follow up again? Or sit tight or go the judicial review route?

I understand my case is not straightforward with a conviction but I would like to still get a decision to decide my next course of action.

Between Nov 22 and Sept 23 your application will have been put on hold pending the outcome of the court case. Therefore you’d need to assume that this 10 months doesn’t count towards your processing time. So you’ve potentially still got quite a long time
before reaching what the department considers standard processing time.

In addition quite a few fully straightforward applications with Nov evettings don’t have any decision yet.

Finally, most approvals are now batched to arrive about a month before the next ceremony (date not yet announced.) so there is no reason to assume you’d be receiving an approval or otherwise until the run up to a published ceremony.

Also JRs are often being ignored (with fines paid if it comes to that) at the moment. In your case I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply batted it off with the justification your court case has added st least a year to processing times.

So by all means go with a JR if you want, but, I’m not sure they are actually late yet in your case. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you get a decision in the next pre-ceremony batch or the one after. Personally I’d wait a ceremony or two.

Thank you for your response. I will wait a ceremony or two before I go to JR as you advice.

Hello All,

Looking for advice from community. Thanks for your help!

Timeline:

Apr 2022: I applied for Irish citizenship by naturalisation. It was a clean application without any convictions at the time of submission. Never been in any trouble.

November 2022: I had a serious lapse in judgement and was involved in a drunk driving incident and was charged with the same.

I made the citizenship division aware that I was charged with drunk and dangerous driving in court and decision awaited in court and sent them documents to that effect which they acknlowgeded receipt of.

September 2023: I plead guilty in court and received a 2 year ban and fine. No custodial sentence.

I again wrote to the naturalisation team and sent them updated copy of the naturalisation form noting my change in circumstance ( As this was not noted when I submitted the form because it hadn't happened yet) The department also acknowledged receipt of the updated form.

November 2023: I received the link to Garda eVetting in and promptly completed the same and self declared the convictions. The eVetting was completed and disclosure viewed in Nov 10, 2023

I have not received any updates on the decision on my application in terms of a approval / refusal since Nov 2023.

Should I
1. Follow up again?
2. Sit tight, or
3. Go the judicial review route?

I understand my case is not straightforward with a conviction but I would like to still get a decision to decide my next course of action.

The delay is because of the conviction, same thing happened to me in the past and the outcome was that I was seen as not of good character because I got in trouble while an ongoing application was with them. Best thing you can do is just wait.

lewilols wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 21, 2024 5:06 pm

The delay is because of the conviction, same thing happened to me in the past and the outcome was that I was seen as not of good character because I got in trouble while an ongoing application was with them. Best thing you can do is just wait.

How long did you have to wait before you heard back from them ? Also if you don't mind which year was this? Were you granted citizenship eventually

Me and my brother applied the same time and he got his back in 2014 and mine was delayed like two three months only to find out it was rejected, and made a fresh application in 2022 and disclosure was viewed today so fingers crossed and btw I had a conviction also hence it being rejected.

lewilols wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 22, 2024 7:41 pm

Me and my brother applied the same time and he got his back in 2014 and mine was delayed like two three months only to find out it was rejected, and made a fresh application in 2022 and disclosure was viewed today so fingers crossed and btw I had a conviction also hence it being rejected.

Hey @lewilols did you finally receive your citizenship in one of the recent ceremonies?