Long term residency visa

[Irene]

HI there!
Could anybody give me any information on how to get long term residency visa? Please. Was searching already for a long time but no luck so far. I am non-EU national, have been working in Ireland for past 5 years. Do I need to apply for my 6th working permite and is it free of charge?
Thanks a lot. Any info will be great!

[marialear]

Good afternoon Irene,

To apply for Long-Term Residency(LTR), you need 60 months (5 years) of Stamp 1 in your passport and have copies of all your work permits.

There is no application form & no fee. To apply, you write a letter to the Immigration Dept requesting that you be considered for LTR. Include photocopies of all your passport stamps, work permits, the GNIB card, etc.. I included a P60 as well. See www.justice.ie. Go to "Site Guide", "Immigration & Citizenship", "Background Notes" and "Permission to remain for non-EEA nationals information leaflet"

In the meantime, you will have to keep up your work permits. When I applied for my 6th work permit, I was given one with no expiry date, which is valid for as long as I stay with my present employer.

Current processing time of LTR is gone past the 30 week time. When I applied in August 2006, I was told 14-16weeks but I haven't got it yet. I recently phoned the Dept they said that they are processing applications that were received in May 2006. So, it will be wait I'm afraid.

Good luck. Best wishes,

Maria

[jack_in_the box]

When I queried about the long term visa I was looked at as though I have 3 heads!! So I applied for my 6th work permit....which was only valid for 1 year again. When going to have it stamped into my passport I was told they'd do it for me THIS time but one is not meant to have a 6th work permit.
I just wish one could get clear guidelines of you need to do & when. I still don't know how to go about getting the long term visa & am up for renewal of my work permit again soon.
To be honest i don't think the people you get to deal with have been informed correctly half the time. It's not their fault but I think these departments could do with giving some more training to the customer facing representatives.

[joesoap101]

but I think these departments could do with giving some more training to the customer facing representatives.

Which would be met with demands on wage increases because their job description has changed and compensation will have to be paid for training seeing that this would be a massive favour for the government.

This is why Ireland is going backward and not progressing.

[dania]

but I think these departments could do with giving some more training to the customer facing representatives.

Which would be met with demands on wage increases because their job description has changed and compensation will have to be paid for training seeing that this would be a massive favour for the government.

This is why Ireland is going backward and not progressing.

[aswadref]

if you have 60 months stamped on the passport the gnib should give you a stamp 4 valid for one year and than you can apply for longterm