Irish Spouse citizenship application from Northern Ireland

[crisbella218]

Hi,

I am in the process of getting all my documents and application form finished for an application for Irish Citizenship based on marriage to an Irish citizen. We are currently based in Belfast.

I currently have two queries that I hope someone can help me with regarding this type of application.

Firstly is it correct to get a PSNI Criminal Record Check (DAT1) and sent this along with the application to show proof of no criminal convictions.

Secondly question 5 regards the Residency permissions. However not having lived in the state means I do not have much to fill in here apart from my passport number. But 5.3 gives the impression if I do not fill the online calculator in and print it out, it will be automatically rejected. Is this required or should Yes/No be ticked and the UK Biometric card certified copy along with any other pass visas be sent?

Also I am including the following documentation if anyone can advise if anything is missing:

My birth certificate (certified copy)
My Passport bio page (certified copy)
Spouse passport bio page (certified copy)
Spouse Birth certificate (certified copy)
Son's Irish passport (certified copy)
Son's birth certificate (certified copy)
Marriage certificate (certified copy)
UK Biometric card copy (certified copy)
Various Tourist Irish visas over the last 3 years (certified copies)
Copy of last 3 pay slips
Last P60
3 different bills for me and my spouse for last 3 months at our current address
Bills for the last 3 years for myself showing date and address
PSNI Criminal Record Check
Letter from employer
Last 3 months bank statements
2 passport photos
Application form

[Ir13]

Hello crisbella218
I was wondering the same questions, there is not much information regarding to people living in Northern Ireland.
Have you post your application yet? if you did, what you answer in question number 5?
It is necessary to post a PSNI Criminal Record Check?
I hope somebody can help us to answer this questions, thank you.

[yankeegirl]

On the part of the application that deals with the online residency checker, simply write "not applicable; reside in Northern Ireland." That's what I was advised to do, and there were no issues. Regarding the PSNI check, I don't think it's required to send it off with the application, bit it saves a bit of time, because they don't have to write to you and ask you to do it when your application hits that stage of processing.

[Stanic]

We've just got our approval from applying as an Northern Ireland Spouse.

- We did provide a DAT1 and were advised to do so when we called the INIS helpline.
- Again as advised, we just did N/A for the residency permission calculator. As we had to provide full signed photocopy of the passport it contain my wife's residence permit and we got the page certified.
-I can't remember exactly what we sent, but there was so much that I put in in a folder with a contents page to make it easier.
We had to attach a marriage affidavit though, it was a separate attachment on the website. (we got this signed and witnessed by the solicitor that certified all our copies), though this may have only been because we got married abroad.

[chaoclive]

We've just got our approval from applying as an Northern Ireland Spouse.

- We did provide a DAT1 and were advised to do so when we called the INIS helpline.
- Again as advised, we just did N/A for the residency permission calculator. As we had to provide full signed photocopy of the passport it contain my wife's residence permit and we got the page certified.
-I can't remember exactly what we sent, but there was so much that I put in in a folder with a contents page to make it easier.
We had to attach a marriage affidavit though, it was a separate attachment on the website. (we got this signed and witnessed by the solicitor that certified all our copies), though this may have only been because we got married abroad.

Hi there Stanic

Thanks for your really useful info!

We will be in this situation in the near future. Do you happen to remember if you had applied for the DAT1 long in advance of the application (it says on the PSNI website that it can take up to 40 days to get a response). I'm worried that if we get it early then it won't cover the last month just before the application. However, if I have to apply when my civil partner has reached the 3 year period to become eligible for citizenship then we potentially delay the application for another 40 days (not ideal as we'd like to get things in ASAP!).

Do you remember if you had applied on the basis of 3 years living in NI or ROI for a period that started when your wife had entered NI on a family permit? My civil partner had a family permit when he got here and then we got the residence card about 5 months later.

How long did your application take in total?

Thanks
CC

[crisbella218]

My application is still in the process.

I applied with the DAT1 form. I got my reply back from the PSNI back within one week. I sent this off with my application. For the residency question I put N/A for the calculation section. Applied with all the documents in my first post.

After two weeks I got my second stage letter (no first letter) requesting copy of all pages of my passport again, plus my original passport, also asked me to fill in question 5 again and provide a list of all absences from the Island of Ireland. They also asked me for a hand written letter giving my signature in English and my Chinese signature as shown in my passport. That was all submitted two weeks ago and am still waiting for my passport to be returned. Was told two weeks for that.

I applied on the 3 year period being on the Island of Ireland married. I had been in NI 2 years prior to our marriage on a post student UK visa.

The whole process is suppose to take 6 months max, with spouse applications a bit quicker sometimes.

[Stanic]

We've just got our approval from applying as an Northern Ireland Spouse.

- We did provide a DAT1 and were advised to do so when we called the INIS helpline.
- Again as advised, we just did N/A for the residency permission calculator. As we had to provide full signed photocopy of the passport it contain my wife's residence permit and we got the page certified.
-I can't remember exactly what we sent, but there was so much that I put in in a folder with a contents page to make it easier.
We had to attach a marriage affidavit though, it was a separate attachment on the website. (we got this signed and witnessed by the solicitor that certified all our copies), though this may have only been because we got married abroad.

Hi there Stanic

Thanks for your really useful info!

We will be in this situation in the near future. Do you happen to remember if you had applied for the DAT1 long in advance of the application (it says on the PSNI website that it can take up to 40 days to get a response). I'm worried that if we get it early then it won't cover the last month just before the application. However, if I have to apply when my civil partner has reached the 3 year period to become eligible for citizenship then we potentially delay the application for another 40 days (not ideal as we'd like to get things in ASAP!).

Do you remember if you had applied on the basis of 3 years living in NI or ROI for a period that started when your wife had entered NI on a family permit? My civil partner had a family permit when he got here and then we got the residence card about 5 months later.

How long did your application take in total?

Thanks
CC

- I think the DAT1 was about a week or two to hear back it was relatively quick, you can phone the PSNI and they can give you an estimate, it all seems to depend on their workload.
- We applied based on 3 years of marriage, so if I remember right, my wife had to have lived on the island of Ireland for 3 of the previous 5 years. (We had been married over 5 years, and living here at the time of application anyway).
- We sent the application in September 2015, and we did treaty rights, so she county as the non-eea spouse of an EU worker in the UK. So we applied after she arrived for the residence card. This may have slowed our application a bit as the residence card date expired, so I had to explain that the card had an expiration, but her rights did not, and legally she didn't have to renew the card.

[Ir13]

On the part of the application that deals with the online residency checker, simply write "not applicable; reside in Northern Ireland." That's what I was advised to do, and there were no issues. Regarding the PSNI check, I don't think it's required to send it off with the application, bit it saves a bit of time, because they don't have to write to you and ask you to do it when your application hits that stage of processing.

Thank you very much for your quick answer. I got my PSNI check sorted online. And was posted in less than a week to my address.