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On Tuesday the 25th of October 2022, changes to the short-stay visa waiver scheme were agreed at a meeting of the Cabinet following a proposal by the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee. This scheme allows citizens from over 20 countries, who have a valid visa to travel to the UK, to travel to Ireland without having to obtain an additional Irish visa.
The Department of Justice has announced that the next citizenship ceremonies will take place on Monday the 5th of December and Tuesday the 6th of December 2022. The ceremonies are being hosted at the Killarney Convention Centre in Killarney, Co. Kerry.
In a notice posted on the ISD Webpage on 14th October 2022 it was announced that a Review of the Atypical Scheme for non-EEA Crew in the Irish Fishing Fleet has been conducted and published.
The report is a detailed assessment of the Scheme and has taken into account the submissions and views of various stakeholders, including the fishing industry, the relevant state bodies and the permission holders themselves.
Berkeley Solicitors has been informed from a number of clients that are submitting visa applications via VFS centres that their original documents are not being retained for the processing of their applications.
We have recently received confirmation that VFS staff act on behalf of the Department of Justice in accessing original documents for the purposes of visa applications.
We are advised that staff at the VFS centres assess the
The Irish Independent published the list of Ireland’s Best Law Firms 2023 on the 2nd October 2022. The list was compiled following a peer-to-peer survey of more than 1,000 legal professionals.
Berkeley Solicitors are delighted to have been voted one the best law firms in Ireland for 2023. This is the second year in a row Berkeley Solicitors have been included in the list, in the category of Human Rights and Immigration.
Minister Helen McEntee recently answered a parliamentary question in relation to the processing times for naturalization applications in the State.
Deputy Bernard J Durkan asked the Minister to confirm the number of naturalization applications that had been received by the Department of Justice during the period of 1st January 2022 to 31st March 2022, how many of those had been granted, and the expected processing time for those that had yet to be determined.
The Minister acknowledged the importance that naturalization applications hold for applicants, and highlighted that the Department of Justice continued to accept applications throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The applicants, who are long standing clients of Berkeley Solicitors, first issued proceedings in 2016 to challenge the Minister’s refusal of an EU residence card to the non-EEA national cousin of a British citizen in 2015. The Minster had refused the residence card application on the basis that evidence had not been provided that the EU citizen was the “head of the household”. The Subhan and Ali case became the test case for many other applicants also challenging the Minister’s decisions relating to the interpretation of term “members of the household of the union citizen” in the context of Directive 2004/38/EC.
Berkeley Solicitors has recently received confirmation from the Department of Justice that the day a person leaves and returns to the State are not considered a day absent from the State when calculating absences for naturalisation applications.
On April 22nd 2022, the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee TD, announced the extension of the 5-year, multi entry, short-stay visa option to all visa required countries. A multi entry visa permits the visa holder to travel to Ireland on a number of occasions during the dates shown on the visa.
Prior to this, Ireland had offered 1 year, 2 year and 3-year multi entry visas. The option of a 5-year multi-entry visa was only available to Chinese passport holders; a measure which was introduced on the 1st of July 2019.
It has now been five months since the Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/382 of the 4th March 2022 and since the Department of Justice commenced granting Temporary Protection for persons fleeing the conflict in Ukraine in accordance with Section 60 of International Protection Act of 2015.
Currently, the Minister still has yet to open the Register of Non Nationals to Ukrainians and holders of temporary protection.