Acquiring permanent residency for spouse of Irish citizen in UK

[Manmoth]

Hi,
As I posted over in the Ireland section, my wife's application for Irish citizenship was recently rejected on nonsensical grounds, so I've been looking into other options.

Details:
I'm an Irish citizen living in Northern Ireland since birth. I used to be only British, but became Irish and renounced British citizenship around late 2014 (married spouse in October 2014). This enabled her to get an EEA family permit and come here as the spouse of an EEA citizen exercising treaty rights in a country not of their origin (it's a little confusing because I'm in the country I was born in, but technically it makes sense).

My wife came here in February 2015. She applied for Irish citizenship in May 2018 on the basis of her having lived on the island of Ireland whilst married to an Irish citizen for 3 years. It was turned down on the basis of not meeting the residency requirements. Yeah, no idea what that's about.

She has a residence card of a family member of an EU citizen which states she can work etc.

It seems the next easiest path is to have her apply for permanent residency in the UK in a couple of years. Our primary goal is just to cement her right to live here. At the moment she has a right to be here based on law, but it doesn't feel very secure that there's no real official declaration of that right from UK authorities. She needs to renew her residence card in 2020, and what if they just reject it for no reason too? I don't exactly trust the authorities to make sense by this point.

So if anyone could shed light on the following things, that would be great:
- In order for her to apply for permanent residence, I have to have permanent residence. I know Irish citizens are automatically settled, but is this effectively the same thing? Is it sufficient on its own?
- My wife hasn't consistently had a full time job the full time she was here, so I've supported her. This means she counts as merely self-sufficient. Does this mean the health insurance requirement would apply to her, or would it be irrelevant to us because I'm sponsoring her and don't require it myself? (I've been working full time since 2013).
- We submitted almost all documents proving our residence (e.g. letters from government etc) to the Irish citizenship place, and I'm not sure if we'll be able to get them back. I'm guessing if we can't produce enough proof of residence that we could potentially explain this in the application form, but will mentioning that her application for Irish citizenship was rejected (or that she applied at all) reflect badly on her application for permanent residence in the UK?

[Manmoth]

Also, should have said, she's Singaporean, though the non-EU status is probably implied well enough by context

[Salem]

Hi,

I'm from Northern Ireland, have Irish Passport, my wife is non EU, she's just obtained PR, had previously had FP then 5 year RC.

Basically, you need to be exercising your Treaty Rights in 5 continuous years since the date she first entered the UK, so working.

Doesn't matter what she was doing, working or not, she doesn't need any Health Insurance as she is a Family Member of an EU Citizen, you. All she needs is proof she was in the UK for the 5 years.

I used a headed letter from my employer and P60's to confirm exercising Treaty Rights, then 5 years worth of Council Tax Bills (5 Bills, one a year) which had both our names on them to prove she was in the UK for all that time. We live in London. That's all, plus ID.

You don't need to have PR, i never bothered.

Sorry can't help you with the Irish stuff, we never tried as living in London. Though wouldn't worry about the documents in regards to the PR application, just keep it simple, your proof of employment, your wife's proof of staying in the UK.

But, and it is a big but, who knows what will happen to PR when Brexit is inacted in the following March and Settled Status becomes the 'norm'. Judging by what you have posted, i'm assuming your wife would be in the UK 5 years in October next year. My advice would be to apply straight away as soon as she is here 5 years, or if things have changed by then, hopefully she can still apply for Settled Status as per the Government updates saying EU Citizens and their Famiy Members can still do this as long as they are in the UK already, which you both are. Though as you say, how much trust you put in the Government to honour these things with so much still up in the air re Brexit, is another matter.

Good luck!

[Manmoth]

Hi,

I'm from Northern Ireland, have Irish Passport, my wife is non EU, she's just obtained PR, had previously had FP then 5 year RC.

Basically, you need to be exercising your Treaty Rights in 5 continuous years since the date she first entered the UK, so working.

Doesn't matter what she was doing, working or not, she doesn't need any Health Insurance as she is a Family Member of an EU Citizen, you. All she needs is proof she was in the UK for the 5 years.

I used a headed letter from my employer and P60's to confirm exercising Treaty Rights, then 5 years worth of Council Tax Bills (5 Bills, one a year) which had both our names on them to prove she was in the UK for all that time. We live in London. That's all, plus ID.

You don't need to have PR, i never bothered.

Sorry can't help you with the Irish stuff, we never tried as living in London. Though wouldn't worry about the documents in regards to the PR application, just keep it simple, your proof of employment, your wife's proof of staying in the UK.

But, and it is a big but, who knows what will happen to PR when Brexit is inacted in the following March and Settled Status becomes the 'norm'. Judging by what you have posted, i'm assuming your wife would be in the UK 5 years in October next year. My advice would be to apply straight away as soon as she is here 5 years, or if things have changed by then, hopefully she can still apply for Settled Status as per the Government updates saying EU Citizens and their Famiy Members can still do this as long as they are in the UK already, which you both are. Though as you say, how much trust you put in the Government to honour these things with so much still up in the air re Brexit, is another matter.

Good luck!

Thanks for the response.

The documentation for it would have been easy until we gave basically everything away to the irish citizenship application place lol. I guess we'll see how it goes - from what I've heard it might actually be easier to apply for settled status after brexit than now, but we may have to wait longer either way if we don't have documents stretching back far enough.

Can't believe there's all this fuss over just letting someone exist in a particular place who isn't harming anyone lol, you'd think every time a foreigner entered the country without a boatload of money someone kills a baby.