Hey Kevin,

There was a backlog of 22,000 applications when this Govt took office so that probably explains the number in the past few months.

Cheers,
Sinead

Hello,

-Was the backlog cleared due to a more efficient processing system or due to the new Justice Minister easing the qualifying terms and conditions?

-Do these new citizens undergo English or Irish language exams?

-Do they need to pass and Irish historical and cultural exam, ala America?

-I dont mean to rain on the parade here and I wish our new citizens the best of luck, but 33 ceremonies over a 180 day period seems extremely excessive.

Best of luck to them all but why should they have to take an Irish language exam? Given most of the county can hardly muster a sentence and you’re more likely to hear Lithuanian spoken in Dublin than Irish, I’d have thought making new immigrants pay lip service to a language the vast majority of general population don’t use would be taking it to far. As for English – yes, I think basic English is a must.

I’d say welcome to them. As is probably obvious, looking at my name, I’m dutch. Lived most of my life in Ireland, and consider myself more Irish than Dutch.

But that’s beside the point. I consider national borders to be an illegitimate social construct that proves to be more oppressive and inefficient, and a dinosaur of feudal and imperial times.

Joost Bos. You are western European and as such you have very similar ancestral (genetic) and cultural heritage to the Irish, as all Europeans do. In fact some of your ancestors heritage is represented on the Irish flag, the House of Orange. Dutch and Germams have always come and lived in Ireland in very small unintrusive quiet numbers.

There is no comparison with a European coming here, a people we are a part of and genetically and culturally related to, and people from Africa and Asia coming here and in numbers that will change the very population of our own indigenous make up forever.

Is anyone demanding that Amazon Indian tribes accept non-Amazonians into their territory and in numbers that will lead to their cultural and genetic extinction?

Just to let you know, even to qualify for applying for citizenship the foreigners pay taxes for 5 years.

Ehm. That’s the point.

As recent arrivals they really had nothing to do with creating the bill, yet they will be made to pay.

Yes but they come here for the prospects of what this country can offer them, whether they come when the tide is not to their liking is life, if they make a gamble they must take the good with the bad.

@Alan they probably didn’t book the place in time.

I watched clips on the news last night, they looked so happy. Noticed a couple of people I was in college with and I know they’d been waiting for this for a long time. They’re thrilled and I’m delighted for them.

Over-react much? There’s no racist comments on this thread at the time of my posting this. However let’s not let facts get in the way of an opportunity for hysteria.

Whom are you referring to here?

theres actually no racists comments at all.. just people wondering who the heck would be choosing Ireland as a place to come raise their kids

So true

The came not yesterday. % years to qualify and 3 years of waiting for decision. 8 years in total. So most of them came to Ireland in 2004-2005. That’s it.

The came not yesterday. 5 years to qualify and 3 years of waiting for decision. 8 years in total. So most of them came to Ireland in 2004-2005. That’s it.

Hi Morgan,

The application fee is €175. Details here: http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Citizenship

Best,
Sinead

There are exceptions but there is a minimum waiting period before you can apply (a minimum length of time as a resident and a minimum length of time after satisfying your qualifying conditions). Once these conditions are met the application procedure can then take place (which lasts a further 23 months; costing 175 euro just to apply and an additional 950 euro in most cases if successful*) .

* http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/irish_citizenship/becoming_an_irish_citizen_through_naturalisation.html

Sinead – that’s not accurate.

€175 is an application fee.

There is also a €950 fee to be paid upon decision:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/irish_citizenship/becoming_an_irish_citizen_through_naturalisation.html#ld1a9a

It’s EUR 950 after your application is approved. I have just been through the process myself. Being a Canadian citizen, I was granted intent to become an Irish citizen after a 2 1/2 year wait — it is a LONG process, the citizenship ceremony for me will take place in a couple months from now I’m guessing. I do think the fee was a bit steep though – EUR 950 and if it were the other way around (Irish citizen becoming a Canadian citizen in Canada) the fee would be CAD 200 (around EUR 150) — huge difference. Nonetheless, delighted that my application was finally approved and I’ve now been given the privilege to become an Irish citizen. It IS a privilege and not a right, and it took me 11+ years of living and working here in Ireland to earn it.

No, not negativity, God ( I mean journo-on-high) forbid.

How about opinions and facts that go against the happy-clappy self righteousness of the new pious church of multiculturalism where if you are a proponent of it you are cool and a good person and if you are against it you are an evil monster!

I see, new blood huh. So do you advocate that for the Amazonian Indians, that they take in 1000s of whites, or the Africans that they take in 100s of 1000s of whites and Chinese? No?

How did Ireland ever build Newgrange (older than the pyramids) and other earthworks of geo-astrological significance? How did we ever re-educate Europe after the fall of Rome, how did we ever have celtic gold artifacts from antiquity among the best of European craft, or the book of kells etc, etc, etc.

All European blood all related, any new waves of European blood from Vikings and Normans (who are also related – virtually the same people) are mixings of the same genes we already had. So how did we ever manage before, FOR MILLENIA. Have some pride in your unique Irish blood. Part of the reason we are now being trampled all over by the international bankers – no pride in this country and being proud to be Irish.

Yes let’s just replace ourselves with people from Africa, Asia, China, that will make up for it. It will make us feel all like good little children to know we are doing what we are told is right and we cannot ever be accused of being racist, nobody in the world will ever have a bad thing to say about us, ever. And everybody will love the Irish, cuz that’s what really matters isn’t it, what other people think about us and that nobody has a bad word to say about us.

That’s right nobody will have a bad word to say about us, because at this rate and with the most understated demographic projections, the Irish will not exist in about 50-60 years.

Your comment wasn’t deleted finbar – if you’re looking at the site on an iPhone or other smartphone, it takes a couple of minutes to appear.

Don’t worry – it’s still there.

Best
Sinead

anyone that isnt a minor, a widow/widower of an irish citzen or a refugee? its 200 for a minor, 200 for the widow/er and the refygee is free

Cynical or what?

Pretty much all of them paid full amount.
If you are sitting on social benefit – most likely you will not get the citizenship.

Where did you get your information that most of these people are on social welfare? Any links or documents to back that statement up?

Vincent I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking.why would they want to live here in a country that is slowly sinking and no end to it and look at the big smile on all their faces sure the government will look after them.there’s nothing here for the paddys never mind another 12000 foreigners

22000

Self supporting
In general, apart from refugees and stateless persons, applicants for naturalisation must prove they can support themselves and their families while living in Ireland. If you can show that you have not received State support in the 3 years before your application, this will generally meet the Minister for Justice and Equality’s requirement that you have been supporting yourself and your dependants and that you will continue to do so.

That’s a pretty arrogant comment, don’t you think? I’m just about to become an Irish citizen, and have been in full-time employment for the past 11+ years paying thousands in tax each month to the government here. All my other non-Irish friends (which there are many) are also working hard and contributing to this country.

Not alone is your statement unresearched Darren but it is also in complete contradiction with the actual situation. If you knew anything about applying for Irish citizenship you would know that being able to support yourself without the help of the state is part of the list of requirements that must be fulfilled. The vast majority of these people have being living and working here for more than 10 years – and many closer to 20 years – so for you to imply that they are living it up on social welfare and to continue to refer to them as “foreigners” after they have just become Irish citizens… well, it is just full of hatred and shows how full of hate you are and really says little or nothing about our knew fellow Irish brothers and sisters.

what do you mean there is nothing here? Despite our misfortunes i still think its one of the best countries to live in, and i have lived in a few. Its not like the arrived yesterday and got citizenship. My mother was in hospital recently and was glad that an Irish Doctor was able to help. His name was Hassan, dont think he claimed any welfare and is contributing to Ireland his home.

Dear Darren, for your kind information if someone(applicant of citizenship) is recieving any money from the social welfare at time of thier ‘even before’ their application would be refuse straight away. So these people who getting the citizenship very quickly actually they are paying taxes to build this country, since they came to this country, most of them will exit from here, as they got european passport to live in some more welcomed country……….they are not like the junkies wandering on street with full bag of beers init (on th day they got the money from post office etc.)

We lost our sovereignty to the International bankers, ask yourself what people do they majoritively comprise? Here’s a clue have a look at Goldman Sachs and Rothschilds. Look them up to see what group of people they are. Oh and the US Federal Reserve, people like Ben Shalom(his actual middle name) Bernancke, who gave the EU central bank and other European and commercial banks part of US 27 billion( it might have been trillion dollars) in order to fund the system so we could give it back to them in bailouts, and then they can waltz in and buy everything up at inflationary prices.

Yes, they tried doing that to Germany in the 1930′s.

Poles are no comaprison to non-Europeans. They are European. Similar culture and heritage to us, less than western Europeans but still closer than any peoples not from Europe. Yes too many east Europeans are here. But many work save money and then go home.

This is no comparison to Africans or Asians who are not related to us either ancestrally or culturally and who will change the nature of the Irish population forever. Are we advocating the same population changes for African countries or Asian countries? No.

Yes because we know that everyone who wears a track suit and lives in Finglas shoots people. Isn’t that a real bigoted and uneducated remark from the kind of holier than thou self-righteous new multicult church people.

They are not racist but are always able to look down their noses at less well off people, less educated people or people who may be overweight. They say all these kinds of comments yet always have as their mantra: at least they are not racist (to anyone not white)

Excuse me, buddy but that is racist and offensive to whites.

Relax. I hope the Irish who emigrate are welcomed better than you’ve welcomed our immigrants

There should be a comp for most ignorant and uninformed topic of the week and this would be it. I would imagine that alot of the people who applied for citzenship would be professionals. Look in your local hospital for example how many darker skinned doctors and nurses would you see ? I would imagine also that many would be from warzones who have fled for a better life. Have you or would you leave Ireland to work in a different country ? Even if.your prediction does come through about Shiria law and the Muslims it cannot do as much damage to.this nation as the Catholics. church has done

Oh dear. Take a chill pill and relax on the Fox News.

Pilib, are you intellectually challenged or what?
You say that you imagine that everyone that applied for citizenship is a professional and you call me ignorant and uninformed?
What’s your basis for that?
You think that the Catholic Church has done more damage than Muslims would have done if they were in control here?
- People can walk away from the Catholic Church today without any consequences.
People that decide to stop being Muslim get executed.
- There are people being executed in car parks in Muslim countries in the present day for invoking evil genies.
- Women that get raped are forced to marry their rapists.
- If the child abuse scandal within the Catholic Church had happened in Ireland with Muslims in control, you would not have heard about it at all in the media because the victims would be too afraid to come forward out of fear of being executed.

Matthew, please ask yourself why Irish people are emigrating, whole families in some cases, at the rate they are now and why, even in a borderline depression, so many people still want to come here?
I really, truly and sincerely hope that Australia never becomes as welcoming as we are in this country. If they start doing what we’re doing we’ll have nowhere to go when the country collapses under our own ignorance and idiocy.

Barry, I would be delighted if you would consider moving abroad yourself. I bet there’s some place for you in the Dutch PVV of Geert Wilders. He’d love your fears and ignorance.

P O Muiegan

I think you win the competition. So only professionals are worthy? If anything it is the professionals who are least in nedd of fleeing a war zone, what about the poor wretches who cannot write a symbol to save their lives.

Here we have more of the self-righteous pious new multicult church nonsense. Well impressed that anyone from the 3rd world could be educated and so pleased to have them here to satisfy your own sense of pillar of society goody 2 shoeyness. Something you can slap yourself on the back with at dinner parties.
Never seen a comment as pretentious, insincere and fake. Monsieur O Muireagan

Before you all vomit your bile about the Catholic church from your new multicult church pulpit, this country would not have been educated without the RC church. There are many things the RC church did for this country that far outweigh the current evil, which is not the whole church either.

You people talk generalities when it suits you. Talk about intolerance.

Sorry…Correction.
The application fee of 175.00 Euro is separate from the approval, which is 950.00 Euro.

I always thought that becoming a citizen of Ireland after a certain amount of years was something that came with a price tag in relation to administration.
But 1125.00 Euro per person !!
Considering the state the economy is in, the state should consider itself lucky to have non EU Nationals seeking citizenship.
I personally know this family of 4 and they had to pay 4500.00 Euro.
This is totally preposterous and amounts to daylight robbery.

They look so happy because they won’t a pain of getting visas, registration, uncertainty with employment rights extra charges for all that every year for every family members. They are free now as everybody else in this country. To be foreigner here is very expensive and uncertain life .

thanks Mr. Val Kearney, i think you were referring to me in the third pic, lol! much appreciated.

Hey Barry, the 19th century called, they want their Malthusian analogies back.

@ Barry
That won’t be a popular comment, but it’s uncountably a realistic one to a degree.

@Aranthos

Undoubtedly .. feck..

Donna, funny enough I sometimes ask the same question myself, at most times it’s sad to hear and read about Irish people emigrating to Australia or US for job as they could not find anything here, but then I know / heard of loads of people who still come to Ireland (so foreigners) and are able to find here work no big problem. Maybe it’s depending on the location in the country, maybe it’s bit of having luck or bad luck, maybe it’s the personal factors too? I don’t think it is that hard to find job in Dublin for example, it’s not easy, but I would not call it impossible, if you really eager and want it and are good at something I think you should be OK. Personally I don’t know any 1 (irish or non irish) who would crave job and could not find one for some really long period of time – unless somebodys expectations are set on the moon.

Donna, all the people who have gotten jobs here prior to 2005, they are the non eu waitress you see in your local hotel, the non eu national working in the fast food resturants, the ones working in shops, they are the doctors and nurses that have been caring for people for the last 8 years or more…they may not have been born here but this is their home now…they have made their homes here…they have not just arrived on our shores yesterday