Irish Visa

reillyb74

My girlfriend, who I've been with for a few years now and who is from the USA, is hoping to move over to Ireland soon for either work or study and I'm just wondering if anyone has a clue about the whole visa process.
We've read through countless amounts of documentation about the different visa types and options and made tons of calls and emails but I'd love to hear from some one who is in a similar situation or who has completed the process/knows some one who has.
It seems to be a very round about process and the work visa I hear is quite difficult to get. As far as the student visa goes she already has a masters in therapy and is current working as a therapist in her home state so I'm not sure if only a higher level of course is available to her for student visa purposes (ie: level 9 or above) or can she branch out and study say a level 6 course that would be in the healthcare/therapy area but somewhat different to her area of expertise at the moment?
Any one who has any information at all I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

dennyk

What exactly is her field? If by "therapy" you mean physical or occupational therapy and the like, that will unfortunately be impossible to obtain a work permit for, as all of those fields are on the Ineligible Categories of Employment list.

Is she a psychiatrist with a medical degree? If so, those jobs are on the Highly Skilled Eligible Occupations list, so if she can find a qualifying job willing to hire a permit-requiring foreign national, that would be her best shot at getting a work permit.

If she is a psychologist or similar with no medical degree, that isn't on the Highly Skilled list unfortunately. It's also not on the Ineligible list, so she could get a General Work Permit for that type of role, but it will be more difficult as the job must first be offered across the whole of the EU without finding any qualified applicants (while a job on the Highly Skilled list doesn't require such a test).

For a study visa, as long as she's accepted to a qualifying course of study, she should have no issue getting the visa. For the purposes of the visa itself, it doesn't matter if it's related to a degree she already holds or is a new field of study that she's pursuing, as long as she legitimately has the academic qualifications needed for the course in question (prior degrees, entrance exams, etc.) and the course itself is a qualifying course of study (any genuine university-provided degree program, either undergrad and post-grad, will generally qualify). She will need to have plenty of funds on hand to pay for her schooling, though (non-EU tuition fees are fairly high here, even if they are cheaper than in many US universities), and to support herself while she's here; she is allowed to take up part-time work up to 20 hours a week, but she'll still need to show the immigration officials that she already has the necessary funds regardless. Also, note that time spent here under a study visa doesn't count as reckonable residence for the purpose of applying for long-term residence or citizenship.

reillyb74

Thanks for the reply.
She's working as an Art Therapist in New York and is working towards her professional qualification at the moment. I realized that it was pretty tough to get the work visa alright.
If we were to get married during her study visa period would that have any effect on when she would be able to work in her current area of Art Therapy or is it just a case of gaining the necessary Irish qualifications here to work in that area?

HDMI

My future wife arrived in 2004 on a 3 month visa and decided she wanted to stay in the country. We went into the GNIB office in Dublin and I filled out a declaration saying that I would support het and they extended th edd visa for 12 months. She had no permission to work, the visa was extended a couple of more times and in 2008 we got married. Straight away all restrictions were removed and she was free to do what she wanted. Her visa category was changed in her passport granting indefinite stay and permission to work.

Not sure if it's so easy to do it that way anymore.

reillyb74

Thanks for that!
I've heard of some people getting through the process like that alright but from all of our research and communication with the departments it seems unlikely.

Has your wife held on to her US citizenship as well?
And is she still liable for US tax if so?

HDMI

reillyb74 wrote: »

Thanks for that!
I've heard of some people getting through the process like that alright but from all of our research and communication with the departments it seems unlikely.

Has your wife held on to her US citizenship as well?
And is she still liable for US tax if so?

My wife kept her US citizenship and in 2013 got her Irish citizenship. It is not a requirement to give up US citizenship to get Irish citizenship. There was no requirement for her to file taxes because she had zero income.

We went through the process for me to move to the US and it was a much more complicated process. I finally moved to the US in September 2018.

reillyb74

Nice one. That's great to hear.
Hopefully it won't be as tough for us either!
Thanks for the reply again.