Naturalisation - FOI and Q5.6 on absences from the state

I requested my personal data under FOI as no progress had been made in some time, and I've had no luck calling or emailing. I'm not yet at Stage 2, but my wife, who applied after me with a near identical application, is already approved. I figured something has gone wrong, so I wanted to see what I could find.

The FOI decision mainly consists of all the documents I provided INIS (proof of address etc) - it's nearly 300 pages all up. There are only a few pages created by INIS.

Checklist
A one page checklist has been partially completed. There are 35 questions, and only 1 to 19 have been answered.

1. Has the Keesing process been completed on the original passport, and is a copy on file?
2. Does Applicant have a PSC? (Copy/PSI lookup on file)
3. Is signature consistent on Passport, PSC & Stat Dec?
4. Is Applicant's name on Passport and Form 8 identical?
5. Has the maiden/married/other name been input on Person ID (NB Garda reports)?
6. Is the date of birth correct per Passport and Form 8?
7. Is the Applicant age 18 or over at date of application?
8. Is the Applicant's address in the correct form on AISIP? (Check correspondence/Google the address)
9. Does the Applicant have any previous applications?
10. Have the passport details been entered on AISIP?
11. Have other identifiers been entered on AISIP (GNIB/PPSN/Mothers maident name, etc)?
12. Is the country of birth correct on AISIP?
13. Is the country of nationality correct on AISIP?
14. Has Applicant answered yes to Q6.1? [note, this is the question about intending to reside in the state after naturalisation]
15. Is Q5.6 satisfied? [This is the question about 6 weeks absence from the state]
16. Is the Statutory Declaration valid?
17. If S15A, is the S15A Declaration valid?
18. Is there an ALERT on any of the Applicant's Apps?
19. Has the Alert been examined & OK to proceed?
20. Have the required residency proofs been submitted?
21. Does the Applicant meet the residency conditions?
22. If Young Adult, are all school letters/parents PTR on file?
23. Has a Garda/PSNI report been requested?
24. Is the GNIB in date to the next Ceremony?
25. NEXT 7 QUESTIONS RELATE To 15A Applications (Spouse of Irish Citizen) Is the 15A dated on or after the date of the Stat Dec?
26. Is there proof of the spouse's Irish citizenship?
27. Is a copy of the spouse's passport photo page on file?
28. Is a copy of the marriage cert on file?
29. Are they married for 3 years at date of application?
30. Are the subsisting marriage proofs (3 each) on file?
31. Is the civil status before marriage on marriage cert /F8?
32. NEXT 4 QUESTIONS RELATE To Refugee Applications Is proof of refugee status on file?
33. Date of arrival in the State
34. Date of refugee status
35. Has the refugee been requested to submit passport?

At the end of Q17, there is a box "ACK COMPLETE" - Mine is signed and dated with the date my Acknowledgement letter was sent.
At the end of the checklist is a box "VAL 1 COMPLETE"

All of the responses look positive, except for #15 - which is answered "N". I was out of the state for longer than 6 weeks in a couple of the preceding years, and I provided them 5 pages of detail - 1 page explanation, 1 page total by year of time away, 3 pages of a log of all my travel. Reading the checklist it would appear that this information didn't satisfy them. Strangely, rather than declining my application, they sent an acknowledgement and just stopped processing my file.

BUT, when I look through the file, 2 pages of travel detail (not 3) are in the middle of a bunch of other documents (address proof) and the 2 page summary/explanation is at the front, next to my Form 8. If they only looked at the two page summary, I can understand the answer to that question.What's concerning is that one page is missing, and it appear that they've missed some critical information.

I've now followed up with INIS by email, and written to my TD, so will see what happens!

Good luck markem. I have a friend (British national) who has been living in Ireland for 20 years. He submitted the application around the same time as me. I got my approval in April, while he only got the second stage letter yesterday. He has a very similar application as yours I believe.

His work requires frequent travels. He travels at least one or two days a week in his career for the last 10 years. He provided a detailed list of why he was absent for more than 6 weeks every year, but it still held up his application till yesterday. He tried numerously times calling, emailing and asking TD's but never got any meaningful responses.

He got his second stage letter today so I guess they are somewhat satisfied now (even though he has now been living in the UK for a few months now since the application was submitted).

Hi Markem,

Im about to send my application off in the few weeks.

When complete it will be about 60 pages in total, I notice you mentioned 300 pages give or take. Can I ask why so many pages? I'm concerned I'm missing something other than what's on the required docs list in the application.

Regards

water_tank1 wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 4:49 pm

When complete it will be about 60 pages in total, I notice you mentioned 300 pages give or take. Can I ask why so many pages? I'm concerned I'm missing something other than what's on the required docs list in the application.

60 sounds ok. They'll have less chance of misplacing key pages, at least!

Mine was perhaps larger than usual as I used a tenancy agreement for each of 5 years as proof of residency (say 20 pages each, there's 100 pages). I also included detailed bank statements, which ran to 50 or so pages.

Then there's about 20 pages of letters and receipts created after the application was sent initially.

If I'd used different proof of residence it could have been down to 60 or so.

Ah I see why yours was so large!

Hopefully nothing gets misplaced once mine is sent.

cheers!

Actually on another note .....

After calculating my absence from the state in 2018 I was over the six-week rule by just two days.
After emailing the citizenship dept they confirmed that they don't count the departure/arrival days as being absent from the state so luckily because of this good news it turns out I am actually two days under! Phew!

Will be sending my application off in the next week or so ....

So does that mean they won't send you second stage letter if any of the mentioned conditions are not satisfied?

The questions seem to fall into three categories:

• Procedural, where they are just recording something they've done (e.g. Q1)
• Checking if you supplied enough information, where you might get a second chance (e.g. Q3 - some people get asked to supply a handwritten explanation of why signatures are different)
• Checking if you meet legal/regulatory criteria for naturalisation (e.g Q14)

I am not sure if Q15 falls into the second or third category. It's been over a year since I got the first letter, and no progress has been made. It would be unusual to get a second letter after the length of time I've been waiting. My guess is that they've moved on to "easier" files, rather than reject the application.

markem wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 3:47 pm

I've now followed up with INIS by email, and written to my TD.

My TD has already got a response from INIS, and my file is being moved to next stage of processing. I don't know exactly what that means, but it's better than nothing. My file had not moved in over a year until this intervention.

As advice to others, if your application hasn't moved in quite a while, using the FOI process to find out what is happening is a good idea. In my case, I found what I think was an error in my file which gave my TD a reason to follow up with INIS and the Minister.

Here is the form I completed to get my records sent to me.