I know plenty of Irish citizens that have 30, 40, 50 or so offences on their record. Can we take their citizenship away and give it to these guys? Much rather have them as neighbours.

Is there any organisation supporting your cause? Looks like you need a voice. Also Write a letter to Richard Bruton….

You can’t remain a professional student all your life. Best of luck.

The naturalization process in this country is a joke. Having taken this young man in, and clapped ourselves on the back for our charity & humanity, we then leave him in legal limbo, able to claim benefits and education but stateless. Why can’t this man be Irish?

That’s a crappy situation to be in but on the flip side, you are only 23, you have escaped a life not worth living and have a great education! Compared to a lot of people your life smells of roses my friend! You still have plenty of time to work on getting your citizenship, and I hope you get it sooner rather than later! ;)

did i miss something? when i read this article i see a man who has done everything by the book and blended in to suit his new surroundings without breaking any laws who is now looking for Irish citizenship. he’s now spent 1/3 of his life here.. its people like this i look up to.. fair play and the best of luck..

This man has spent 10 years living here, and what more do you need to prove that you want to be a citizen of this country?
The very best of luck Lutfullah. You sound like a decent hard working guy.

The whole thing is so stupid. The government making cuts to health and education, while there are people like this man who could be working and paying taxes!
This government is just as much of a failure as the last one. So frustrating!

Hope you will get it soon buddy.good luck to you and your career.

This is absolutely ridiculous, as a young professional engineer (like myself) working in Ireland is largely out of the question due to the lack of engineering vacincies. Being stuck here means that the state is denying you your right to persue your career that would more than likely provide you with the opportunity to work on many interesting engineering projects around theworld. It is situations like this that really infuriate me, this government is failing people like Lutfullah, by just sweeping the problems of everyday hard working people aside.

Good luck Lutfullah

It sounds like you have grounds to seek an order of mandamus from the High Court in judicial review proceedings compelling the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality, to make a decision in respect of your application for naturalisation. Post a comment with your contact details if you wish to discuss.

lutfullah, this injustices done to you by the incompetent bureaucrats in this country was not done on my behalf. I am sorry this happened to you and your brother, i am contacting my local TD today to give him another piece of my mind. Don’t hold your breath.

So just an update. Things have improved significantly since yesterday thanks to theJournal.ie and everybody else for their support.
I have been contacted by a lawyer, prospects are high for a publication of my story in another paper and now the UNHCR are involved too. So I couldn’t be more happy.
Cheers everyone.

This man has been here for 10 years; he has an Irish education and explicitly states that he is now, as a result of living and growing up here, too far gone to return to his roots. In my opinion, he is Irish; albeit he does not yet have the document that that makes this status official in the eyes of the law. If he is entitled to this document, he should get it. Through his hard work, diligence and commitment he has earned it.

His brother’s case is simply ridiculously. He is deemed to be of ‘bad character’ for a frivolous incident not even deserved of being termed a crime. Furthermore, seeing as he is working on a PhD, he strikes me as one of the many who compose the driving force behind the innovation on this island that is facilitating our reputation as ‘knowledge economy’. Yes, most indeed of ‘bad character’.

Despite all that has happened here since the so-called boom catastrophically ended, Ireland is still, for the most part, a nice country to live in. People don’t seem to realise this until they leave these shores to pursue a life elsewhere and are met with the adversities that we don’t have here, that we take for granted. Most graduates now are emigrating and for the vast majority it’s not because they want to but rather because they realistically have no other choice. If they stay, they will burden the state. The engineering sector in particular has notably deflated dramatically and it is common place in a graduating engineering class that most will leave for prospects elsewhere. Therefore this man should not be denied the same opportunities that his peers are entitled to. How can he apply his specialist skills in a country that, at present, has no requirement for them? In this regard, if he cannot leave, the next logical step in his education would be to complete a course to re-skill, which would only serve to negate much of his hard work studying engineering to the Master’s level; no easy feat in itself for many. A very disheartening reality for many currently in engineering who cannot leave due to family commitments, mortgage repayments etc.

Above all, this illustrates how the government is failing the hard working and decent individuals who contribute in a positive way to this country. Their careless attitude and deplorable treatment of these individuals only serves to create an image of this island that is very much out of line with modern thinking.

I wish him well and every success in his endeavours to get what he is entitled to.

Hi everyone,
This is Lutfullah, I would like to express my gratitude to everybody who has shown support, it means alot. I can be contacted at this facebook account for any questions.

The Department of Justice needs to get a grip! For starters, driving with no L plates is far from what Gardai should be doing with their time, considering the drug, gun and violent crime we have in Ireland. Secondly, its about time there was a “Citizens Charter” in the public service, that all issues brought before government departments are dealt with in timely fashion, and for citizenship, a period not exceeding 24 months from date of application. I know other “Refugees” like these young men, We have several hundred in Ireland from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Egypt and other nations which have in recent years undergone civil unrest.
I also have some experience with INIS, in that my youngest son is not an Irish passport holder, and last year was refused entry back into Ireland – and when we appealed, they requested information that we had already submitted!! A simple LOOK at applications in a lot of instances, not to mention common sense would cut a lot of the crap out of the system.
If we are to be a modern nation, and a nation which our leaders want to attract business and enterprise to, these two young educated and ambitious young men are EXACTLY the people we need.
The Minister for Justice should recall their applications onto his desk, review them with the relevant head of department and get these young men their passports ASAP so they can get graduated and contributing to our country. We all know its needed!!!

Hi Barry,
A travel document must be valid for more than a certain period of time before you are given a visa. To my understanding this is more than eleven months. So I cannot acquire a one year visa on an eleven months document. I have mentioned that I don’t intend to claim social welfare. And it is not BS, not many afghans get the opportunity to study in a high class university such as TCD. I appreciate this more than others would because of my past. So I do intend to serve Ireland however I can.

This is ridiculous. With the current econimic situation in Ireland the Government should be doing everything it can to encourage and help university graduates. As it is likely there will be little work in the Engineering sector in ireland, the Government should not be preventing anybody from furthering their career in Ireland or abroad. This system needs to be seriously reviewed as it is restricting graduates, like Lutfullah, from progressing in their careers and lives in general.

As a young engineer I know that there is no immediate future in engineering in Ireland and i am planning on leaving the country to get the required experience so that I can return here and settle down. I can’t imagine what it must be like knowing this but not having the same opportunities to get the necessary experience so that he can return here and put a hard earned qualification such as engineering to use. 40 months is a ridiculous amount of time to be waiting on a decision especially after he was relocated here by well know and respected international organisations.

This is a disgrace, we all know the real reason that he has not been accepted for citizenship is because the person or people who work in the public sector responsible for making the choice are simply to lazy to do their job. This lazy attitude is seen throughout our public sector and it helps no one because it makes our state look incompetent. Lets face it, if our average citizen was as educated as Lutfullah Ireland would most likely be in a better position than it is today. Good luck Lutfullah, I would be proud to call you an Irish citizen.

6 months not being long term is your opinion. It does not portray the opinion of the INIS. Your twisting the comments I made. I never stated that I ‘wanted’ the minister to act on my behalf ‘ahead of all other applicants’. The passport is valid for 11 months. It doesn’t mean it is ok for me to be away for 11 months.

Considering what we did to the Jewish ‘Ship of Shame’ back before World War 2, refusing to allow anyone to land on our Catholic soil, it just proves there is nothing new in our attitude to refugees. The worst part is that we are paying money to these people who only want to be recognised as useful in the country they adopted.
I lived on a Spanish island off the coast of Africa for some years. The Labour government came into power & decided to make all the boat people legit, if they had no criminal record in Spain, over 50,000 refugees were then given rights they never had before & they did wonderful things. One was a good friend, who went on to work as an air hostess. They added to the ethnicity of the culture, as well as to the workforce, Spanish earnings & spending jumped from 2005 until the recession hit home.
The recession was caused by the greedy bankers over there also. We need to get a little bit pro-active on this, the amount being wasted on pursuing poverty stricken people, who are slightly different from the inbred stock we have here. For God’s sake give him what he richly deserves, he’ proved himself

It seems clear to me that you want Irish citizenship so that you can leave for longer than 11 months because there’s no work here for you, which is completely understandable.
If you’re entitled to citizenship, then I hope you get it.
I would rather that you were honest though and say that you don’t want to end up on social welfare, which would be admirable, and that you need your citizenship so that you can leave and find work, rather than this bullsh*t about needing it to serve Ireland and its people.

There is an emigrant advice organisation I used to work with, called Crosscare. I believe they can provie you with certain help. Their website is: ( http://www.migrantproject.ie/ ).
Hope everything works out for you, Lutfullah! Good luck!

BITCH LIKE A WOMAN AAAMMM REALLY RITA????…. and another thing just because someone has a different outlook than you does not make them less than you or ignorant, we do live in a country of free speech, we may not like some peoples opinions but we must respect their right to them and we must respect them as fellow Irish men and women and as fellow human beings and defend with our lives their right to those opinions, other wise lutfulla may as well go home, because we would then be just the same as the taliban, speak only what we want to hear, I have read his letter and I have got to say he will just have to wait for the process to take its course, if he is here for the last 10yrs then why did he only apply 3yrs ago, I hope I am wrong but this sounds a little dodgy, I mean if he is so intent on serving this country and feels that he owes it something then wait until the process is finished and stop trying to embarrass the government into rushing his papers through.
I mean he is doing fine at the moment all he has to do is wait for due process.
I got a friend living in Holland and he had to wait and work there for six years before he was naturalised and he is an EU citizen so give me a break, and it does sound like he just wants to skip this country when he has the means to and go somewhere else as an irish citizen looking for work.

Will he be a afgan or Irishman after?

The problem is that on gaining citizenship an applicant becaomes eligible for certain benefits – especially housing.And these benefits cost the State a lot of money. Also a citizen may bring in others.

He complains at waiting three years – in most countries you wait a minimum of five years from applicarion, and it may average out at a wait of seven or even ten years and people have had to wait even longer.

This is not due to “bureacratic” delay, this is because the deciding officer may not be sure of something in the application or may indeed wish to test the applicant further. The deciding officer has a most responsible duty on behalf of the State and must be certain.
Citizenship is not given away like candy.
And also just because a person is admitted that does not mean that there is any “promise” of award of citizenship by the State, so it is strange that it is stated here that there was such a promise because that’s never made or done.
Only a couple of weeks ago another 2200 persons were made citizens and there has been 22 such citizenship ceremonies in the past year since Mr. Shatter became Minister, This is really fast, indeed I would submit that Ireland has created more citzens in the past year than any other country in the world , so why all the complaints here of delays when we’re the best in the world?

If you came to this country legally, then I hope you get your citizenship soon,
but please, enough of this “…serving Ireland and her people” rubbish.

My husband has lived with a similar situation for the last several years he is only effected when he needs to travel so quite obviously you are looking to leave the country and not serve it as it has you

Now I have my free education I want to be able to emigrate?
I had to pay €16,000 for my degree and masters and will have to pay more than that for each of my children.
Stop complaining, you and your brother have been very well treated.

You must remember that many young Irish people with a similar qualification to yourself have had to emigrate over the last number of years. Some of them had several years of experience. Many have gone to Australia and they will not get citizenship overnight. They will have to work at least 4 years before they can start the process. You are a lucky man you got to come to Ire and have a fantastic degree. Everyone has to wait for these things.

How can you properly check or vet someone who claims to come from a country where proper criminal records may be missing or destroyed or just not kept properly?

To be fair, there was a military regime in Pakistan when we came here and there is now a democratic government.

The process is strict. There is no reason for the delay other than you don’t fit the criteria or have not completed the forms fully or correctly. This is just I assume, one side of the story. There is probably the other; the states. To suggest its deliberate is simply not true.

Alan, if the Irish Government, or indeed any government, were to grant citizenships to all that these highly respected international organizations want them to then there would be millions pressed in here and a billion re-located worlwide!
You have to face it that Ireland is simply not in that league, we only have the population of Greater Manchester and we’re bust with one in seven unemployed. And we have to go by market dictates if we want to survive.

And an official only has a person’s word that he/she won’t go on JSA which is extremely generous in this country, or any other of the multiple benefits available .
There is another consideration, it depends on the type of person you are. If I came here and qualified as a civil engineer I would want to go back and rebuild my wartorn country and help my people.

There is too a lot of voluntary work abroad on six-month contracts helping to develop third-world countries, and it’s experience-rich too. And there’s such a great satisfaction too in helping rather than being part f the problem.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are crying out on their knees for civil engineers whereas we don’t need any here right now.

Anyway , tell me any country in the world where you’ll get citizenship in 40 months ?

John Murphy , there was no ” Jewish Ship of Shame”! , certainly none that sought landing rights in Ireland.
And I resent you referring to us Irish people as “inbred”, this is a racist insult against the Irish people. Withdraw it with apology, Thank You. Michael.

In response to your deleted comment about me and my family’s knowlege : A wise man knows everything; a shrewd one, everybody :) GOOD DAY

I hope you don’t want to serve Ireland the way Afghans have served Pakistan when it opened its borders for Afghan citizens in war time and got drugs,illegal arms,frauds and a cold shoulder in return! Good luck anyway!

But why does he want Irish citizenship to be away in the world, I just don’t get that. I suspect now that he wants Irish citizenship so he can work in other EU Countries and this is not on at all!
We can’t con our fellow EU States by going down that dishonest road, we would truly become a banana republic then in their eyes.
Therefore I now believe that the Department of Justice is right to be careful with respect to this man. They know him better than we do!

A racist would say let him off, but no, we have our obligations to our EU Comminity and if we are not totally responsible in carrying out our duties we could be held to account for this !!!

I am sorry to hear of your storiy” again the justice of equality claims that he wants to introduce human rights reform” he doesn’t carevabout human rights, Alan shatter is a disater looking for too much power, you would thing with him being a Jew that he would of sympathise with your circumstances and don’t mind some of the ignorant people who say harsh things to you, everyone is welcome to Ireland, reguards of what religion” the government ;FG and LB are racisist and they are just plain ignorant” this government are a bunch of hypocrites and liars and robbers, their are no human rights with this shower of government leaders only hamsters and wasters” they will not listen to the Irish people, their a bunch of racial bunch, I hate them, good luck lut and I hope you will be allowed to stay and don’t mind some of people’s ignorant comments, as they have a problem in sharing their country, sounds like a little jealousy with some of them” but moaners and Moran is what they are as they like to bitch like a woman, silly beggars, Rita cahill

That’s good to hear, not to be entirely wrapped up in your own fanily’s prospects in Ireland and the other EU countries especially, now that there is mass unemployment here, especially in your brother’s profession.

Now I have business to do conclude, I hope someone else can be of assistance, Good Day.

And they are being served.If anyone is in a similar situation then I WILL support them.

Finally I would advise this man NOT to mention to the Dept of Justice in his application that he wants Irish citizenship so as to be able to work abroad( i.e. another EU country, that’s immediately what springs into their mind. The Dept. can make no conditions on a citizen but when you’re an applicant they can make their own decision and they don’t have to explain it , not unless there’s a court direction to them to do so, and even then the court may agree with them.

Patrick C, it’s not about education! I know many lovely people with little or no education, that’s discrimination you’re talking, and your type usually mean “the bog Irish” too :-)
You don’t even know the official on Lutfullah’s case so how can you say that, you must be a seer !

No, I am not the hard-working civil servant concerned.
And, no, Lutfullah is not a stateless person and nobody is actually forcing him to remain here in Ireland. These are actual facts.
He is allowed to remain in Ireland for as long as he wants subject to humane conditions as apply in all the most progressive countries. He has no automatic entitlement to citizenship, nobody has.
Nor is his position an emergency one, granting citizenship in his case is not a matter of saving his life.
Already neither he nor his supporters here, probably fellows of Lutfullah themselves, members of NGO’s, and a couple of political oddballs, one bad enough to refer disparingly to the Minister’s religion, have answered some vital questions, the most important being about gaining Irish citizenship to go and work in another EU country which is not liked by the EU and could land the Minister and Ireland in trouble.

BYW Minister Shatter is Irish, as Irish as I am. Therefore his origins/religion should not be brought up so much publicly, ironically by people who maintain that they’re multicultural!
It is his own private business. Personally it makes no difference to me if the man were a Holy Roller :-)

As nobody here knows what your exact position it is , I think, impossible to decide on your story.
Six-month contracts abroad are not long term and you have stated that you can be absent from Ireland abroad for up to eleven momths.
Personally I was six years waiting for UK citizenship so what they publish is not the same in practice.

Local authrority housing is a very complex area where a deciding officer may well grant a house to an applicant who is a citizen, regardless of nationality, ahead of an applicant who isn’t. Again from experience in the UK it was almost impossibble for an Irish citizen to get a council house there, and I believe that it still is, in practice.

Now Alan Shatter can’t be expected to read personally and decide on thousands of applications for citizenship every month, we’d love to have a super minister like that, all our problems would be over, so like every other minister he has to have deciding officers to help him, that’s what the Civil Service is for.

And now you state that you want the minister to act as deciding officer in person on your application ahead of all other applicants. Well that isn’t a very endearing attitude for any applicant to have in the first place and that indeed may be your problem.

As regards bringing others in I did not mean just a wife which is fairly automatic, I meant an entire extended family. And all could be on welfare.

andrei
Maybe someone did not support it, but I do not need. just wondering opinion Irish. I lived in a refugee camp for 4 years. I have a daughter and a wife. in a refugee camp we received 19 euros a week. Once I (because there was not enough money, and wanted to make a gift to his daughter), I tried to steal some clothes. but was caught, there was a trial and I was fine. It was 7 years ago. I was denied when filed for citizenship. I have the trave ldocument, but when leaving and returning to Ireland I’m always at the passport control taken aside and asked to wait until all pass. Then start asking questions where he was, what he was doing and search them. even forced to remove their shoes and socks. subjected to this humiliating procedure at the passport control officers probably do not realize that it is demeaning to the passport …. and I decided do not apply for naturalisation , beacause the mark of thief will be on my person probably for life. Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Luke 23:39-43 and Jesus forgave him … this is my story …

I am working in ireland as a doctor for 5 years,i know number of doctors waiting for citizenship more than 5 years.