Marrying my Fiancee, Welfare & Salary requirement

[irishlad]

I am a 32 yo Irish male, I am engaged to be married to my Brazilian Fiancee (35), We know each other with over 1 year and she is in Ireland on a Stamp 2 English Language Visa which was initially due to expire in April but has been subject to a series of one month extensions, it expires in September 20 but will likely get extended again. She is on the Covid-19 PUP payment since April having lost her job.

We have been living together since the start of the pandemic here and we both decided it was too dangerous in Dublin as we both live in the countryside in a different county outside Dublin. I own my house here and rent in Dublin is crazy money. We are in a very loving and stable relationship and it is fair to say that this woman is the best thing to ever happen in my life.

Both of us have been looking at weddings here in Ireland and it is an incredibly bureaucratic process involving an appointment and then a 3 month wait, and you may not get the date you want. It also managed by the HSE which instils about as much confidence as a chocolate teapot.

We both decided instead that we will marry in Gibraltar as there is far less bureaucracy involved, my preference would be for a Las Vegas Wedding but both of us are unable to travel to the USA at the moment due to Covid restrictions, we should fly to a third country with access to the USA e.g. Turkey, Mexico or Dubai. and remain there for 2 weeks before being allowed to enter the United States. The added costs of flights and accommodation etc. led us to settle on Gibraltar instead. The process there is straightforward enough without dealing with HSE ineptitude.

Our plan is to marry next month and return to Ireland, she will then leave Ireland two weeks after as she is returning to her family in Brazil having not been back there since 2018. I will join her in Brazil in January for one month and we will return here to Ireland to reside permanently and get her paper work and Irish Stamp 4 Residency sorted.

I am new to all of this and I would like any advice on what to lookout for and the pitfalls and likely problems we may encounter.

My biggest concern is below:

Irish citizens wishing to apply for family reunification for spouses/children are required to have earned not less than €40,000 over the previous three years combined prior to the application and not to have been reliant on state benefits for two years prior to the application.

By far my biggest concern is this as I am in receipt of Disability Allowance here in Ireland, I am unable to work and have not worked in over 12 years. This is a permanent condition and it is highly unlikely I will ever again return to employment, I am 32 years old.


What is the situation with this since I am unable to work? Surely I am excused from such rules?

[Granista]

First off, its not in any sense "incredibly beuracractic" to get married here, you simply have to register and wait, same as in most countries. If you marry in Gibraltar, a favourite spot for sham marriages due to the lack of checks, you will immediately look suspicious to INIS. Why would an Irish citizen and a Non EEA national travel to Gibraltar in the middle of a pandemic, purely to evade the very minor checks on applying to marry?

[irishlad]

First off, its not in any sense "incredibly beuracractic" to get married here, you simply have to register and wait, same as in most countries. If you marry in Gibraltar, a favourite spot for sham marriages due to the lack of checks, you will immediately look suspicious to INIS. Why would an Irish citizen and a Non EEA national travel to Gibraltar in the middle of a pandemic, purely to evade the very minor checks on applying to marry?

The waiting period in Gibraltar is far less than Ireland. The checks in Ireland are very inconvenient and costly when you must get documents translated from Portuguese to English at €€'s per page. Also I have zero confidence in the HSE or Irish Civil Service to do anything efficient or timely. Look at the disgraceful way they handle immigration here, there is no reason these cases could not be sorted out within one week, the forum is full of horror stories from INIS.

The Govt will treat our marriage as suspicious anyway so I'm not really bothered. The Pandemic is not something we are bothered by and life has to go on irregardless. We plan to fly to Malaga, drive to Gibraltar and after marriage continue to the Algarve in Portugal. A wedding abroad like this is also far cheaper than paying for anything here in rip-off Ireland, we both decided we didn't want to waste €25-€30k on a wedding for people we hardly know or don't even like. Covid19 has given us the great excuse to marry abroad, saving us thousands in the process. A Catholic Priest will perform the Religious ceremony next year in a Chapel with both our families present, a very small low key affair conducted privately.

My Fiancee is returning to Brazil in early November to spend Christmas with her family as she didn't go home in almost 2.5 years. I plan to fly there to Brazil in early January and we will spend a month before returning to Ireland, we will enter in Dublin as husband and wife and this will be the start of our process of her getting Stamp 4 Permanent Residency. My biggest questions are concerns are based around this

[Vorona]

The Govt will treat our marriage as suspicious anyway so I'm not really bothered.

This line alone tells it all. You should made this your biggest concern.

[irishlad]

This line alone tells it all. You should made this your biggest concern.

We have been in a relationship with over 1 year and living together with almost six months, We can show them whatever it is they ask, I'm sure they will make it as difficult as possible but that is Civil Servants here, they don't want to actually do any work other than making life difficult for people.

The fact that I am unable to work is my bigger concern, I think it would be a breach of my human rights and EU rights also if they were to deny my wife a Stamp 4 residency permit on the basis on my own inability to work and resulting welfare dependency which was caused by the HSE and absolute Government incompetence.

I am hoping to avoid having to employ a solicitor due to their parasitic legal fees.

[Granista]

" wedding abroad like this is also far cheaper than paying for anything here in rip-off Ireland, we both decided we didn't want to waste €25-€30k on a wedding for people we hardly know or don't even like. Covid19 has given us the great excuse to marry abroad, saving us thousands in the process"

What a load of nonsense. You could have a reg office ceremony here for a fraction of the price of multiple flights abroad.

I predict you will not get the visa sought. Your attitude is atrocious and you are clearly dodgy as hell.

[littlerr]

To be fair, the Irish marriage prechecks are kind of the standard in most EU countries. Only small number of countries such as Denmark and Gibraltar have loose rules. For this reason, wedding certificates from such areas will look suspicious, especially when compounded with other factors: her student permission is about to expire, you are unable to work and are on welfare payments.

And how is it that your inability to work was caused by HSE and the Government? And how is it a breach of human rights? There is no such human rights that a non-EU will be able to work just because they have a wedding cert from a well-known country that facilitates sham marriages.

Realistically speaking, she would more than likely need to write to SOIN to apply for a permission, which may 6-12 months. You would be better getting a civil marriage cert in Ireland first which costs almost nothing, before heading to Gibraltar for a wedding ceremony.

[irishlad]

Me and my wife got married in Gibraltar last month despite all the problems we faced with lockdowns, bureaucracy and flight cancellations etc. however we managed to get married, I love her so much and she is the best thing to happen me, my flew from Malaga back to Dublin and she was given 90 days (end of February) to register with INIS for to get her stamp 4.

Our Wedding Certificate will arrive this week from the Gibraltar Registry Office. Who do I need to notify of my marriage here in Ireland? Do I need to send a copy of the Gibraltar Marriage Cert to the Irish Registry Office here?

I would like some advice on how to proceed next, my wife has returned to Brazil for Christmas and to see her family since it was almost 2.5 years since she first came to Ireland to study English and changed both our lives forever. I am planning to fly to Brazil to spend 4 weeks with her from Early January to early February. I was abroad last year and this year want to spend Christmas with my elderly parents who had numerous health scares this year.

When she enters Ireland again in early February what sort of stamp or permission will she receive?

Once we are back in Ireland I presume the next step is to setup an appointment with INIS in Cork Anglesea Garda Station since we are both based outside of Dublin.