EMAIL FROM CITIZENSHIP DIVISION

Dear Fellows,
I need your precious piece of advice in following matter.
My wife applied for the Irish citizenship based on spouse of an Irish citizen in July 2017. The application was received in July 2017. In July 2017 the passport was sent back, and the department demanded for the utility bills, GP letters and bank statements for last 3 years. These documents were forwarded to them. Since then no letter till September 2018. In that letter the department asked for the copy of the Irish passport of the spouse and copy of decree absolute/ divorce certificate of the Irish spouse of previous marriage. These documents were provided to them in September 2017. In September 2017 received a letter informing that the application is now in 2nd Stage. Since then no letter. Last week we sent them a letter asking the chances of my spouse to be included in to upcoming ceremony of 29 April 2019. We received the email reply today. The abstracts of that email are given below.
“Your application for naturalisation continues to be processed in the normal way
with a view to establishing whether the applicant meets the statutory
conditions for the granting of naturalisation and will be submitted to the
Minister for decision when processing is complete. If further documentation
and/or clarification of any matter related to your application is required
from you, we will write to you requesting it”


Please advise what does it mean. I have some theories about this reply.
1- The application is under process and has not been sent to the Minister for his decision.
2- This is a standard reply from the department without inquiring from the relevant department about the latest update of my application.
3- The application is with the Minister and we can expect a letter from him any time, asking for the photos and bank draft.
Please advise me, if someone has been in the same situation. Your help and support in this regard will be much appreciated.

Probably a mix of 1 and 2. Certainly not 3 at this stage.

As the spouse has previous marriage which was not voluntarily disclosed to INIS, you can't really blame them on taking longer. Normally Irish national spouse applications are the quickest if it doesn't have any complication. Was the Irish citizen previously married to an EU or non-EU person?

The response from INIS implies that they have not confirmed whether the applicant satisfies the statutory requirement (most likely due to the complication of the Irish spouse's previous marriage history). It is nowhere near complete. This check is normally conducted at the first stage. You said you had received a letter saying you have been moved to second stage. This means after moving your application to second stage, they had new suspicions and wanted to check again.

September or December ceremony would be more realistic.

The minister won't start approving large batch of applications until late July / early August. You can consider to file a request under FOI or have a solicitor involved if they don't complete your statutory requirement check by May / June.

Thank you dear fellow for your valuable comments. In fact the divorce of the Irish spouse was declared in the application form. The 2nd stage letter was issued once the divorce certificate was sent to them. It effectively means that the 2nd stage letter was issued once they were satisfied. We have not received any letter from INIS since 2nd stage letter, apart from email reply. That is the latest position. Please advise, your valuable comments and suggestions are welcome. I look forward to your response.

littlerr wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:08 am

As the spouse has previous marriage which was not voluntarily disclosed to INIS, you can't really blame them on taking longer. Normally Irish national spouse applications are the quickest if it doesn't have any complication. Was the Irish citizen previously married to an EU or non-EU person?

The response from INIS implies that they have not confirmed whether the applicant satisfies the statutory requirement (most likely due to the complication of the Irish spouse's previous marriage history). It is nowhere near complete. This check is normally conducted at the first stage. You said you had received a letter saying you have been moved to second stage. This means after moving your application to second stage, they had new suspicions and wanted to check again.

September or December ceremony would be more realistic.

The minister won't start approving large batch of applications until late July / early August. You can consider to file a request under FOI or have a solicitor involved if they don't complete your statutory requirement check by May / June.

Thank you dear fellow for your valuable comments. In fact the divorce of the Irish spouse was declared in the application form. The 2nd stage letter was issued once the divorce certificate was sent to them. It effectively means that the 2nd stage letter was issued once they were satisfied. We have not received any letter from INIS since 2nd stage letter, apart from email reply. That is the latest position. Please advise, your valuable comments and suggestions are welcome. I look forward to your response.

Dear Readers and Members,
I need your help and support in following matter. I need your expert opinion. Your help and support in this regard will be much appreciated. My spouse has applied for Irish citizenship in July 2017. In September 2018 she received a second stage letter. Since then we have not heard anything from them. Now we have complained to them for long delay quite recently. We asked them to include my wife for forthcoming citizenship ceremony of 29th April 2019. In response, out of blue, we received the email from Team 4, previously it was Team 1 who was responding to our email, they have stated

Dear……,

Your application continues to be processed. While it is not possible to
give an exact time frame, this office will be in touch as soon as a decision
has been reached.

Regards

Citizenship Helpdesk
Team 4

Now please advise , I have following assumption.

1- After the complaint there is a push to an application and has been forwarded for the next procedure because it has been responded by team 4.
2- It is a template answer.
3- After complaint they have acted, and we might get a letter soon regarding paying fee, photos and inclusion in 29th April Ceremony.
4- File has moved on but its too late now. My wife has a chance to be included in September 2019 ceremony.
Please advise your valuable observations and comments will give us an assessment.

With regards to all.

Dude this is your 3rd or 4th post for the exact same question... I understand the frustration, but posting the same questions again and again on the same forum won't get you anywhere.

This is just a template answer. And the team number does not make any difference at all.

Regarding your wife's application, someone may or may not be actively examining her application right now. You won't be able to tell anything from this response. You need to request for an FOI if you want to know the actual progress.

I suspect the delay is to do with the previous divorce history but that's just my guess.

1- After the complaint there is a push to an application and has been forwarded for the next procedure because it has been responded by team 4.

No you cannot chase them by email.

2- It is a template answer.

That's correct.

3- After complaint they have acted, and we might get a letter soon regarding paying fee, photos and inclusion in 29th April Ceremony.

Sorry but this is not possible.

4- File has moved on but its too late now. My wife has a chance to be included in September 2019 ceremony.

Again this is just a template answer. It has no indication when it will be complete.

One thing for sure. The application is still in second stage, so it will not be included in the next ceremony. September is more realistic but with the complication of divorce history it might take longer. A good lawyer may be able to speed this up.

I completely understand your frustration and I am sorry you’re going through this. I also applied in 2017 and only received approval in March. It’s hard to guess why they take so long... I guess if you didn’t have to wait that long you won’t know how it feels.

Anyways, my suggestion to you is to reach your local TD and ask him to ask a Parliamentary Question to the Minister. This way you will have an official answer as to where her application is at the moment rather than a template answer.

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely she will be included in this upcoming ceremony. But she should be included im Septembers one if they start working on it.