It seems the whole process is a shambles. I’ll be moving into month 12 waiting for a decision in a couple of weeks. I know there are many others waiting longer. I see a sporadic user updating with a sub 6 month timeline, but by far the general consensus is average decision time is longer than 6 months. This is probably representative of users who also don’t post here I’d imagine.
I applied early October 2017 and have emailed a few times since - the usual copy and paste replies, nothing specific to my case which is very frustrating.
Attempting to call a phone line open for 4 hours per week is also a nightmare. Thursday gone I spent 2 hours redialling, no exaggeration, hearing ring back twice and busy tone the rest of the time.
The odd person who gets through - have you been given concrete info about your case which actually came to fruition?
I don’t think I actually mind how long this process takes. For me being Irish is already apart of me. I thought mine was a simple case which would take the 6 months - I’ve lived here 25+ years since arriving as a child. Currently I’m a UK citizen. I’m lucky I’m not dependant on approval, rather it’s something I want rather than need. If I have one regret it’s not applying 20 years ago when all you had to do was complete a basic form and ring your local TD to progress it!
How hard would it be for INIS to have a simple tracking system on their website - put in your reference number, date of birth, mothers maiden name and you receive an update on progress - stage 1, stage 2, pending submission etc. Email queries and phone calls immediately dwindle. Those handful of overworked
INIS staff can focus on something more appropriate. INIS website a joke, phone line a joke, email correspondence a joke.
Also the decision is at the absolute discretion of the minister. So it’s at the discretion of some 61 year old who happened to win a small constituency and whose party had power. That’s hilarious.
Citizenship is a privilege that I wouldn’t argue with. But having a robust naturalisation process in place should be the foundation of this privilege, and for me it’s just not there at the moment.
