Hiya All,

my Wife is on a 2 year settlement visa, which I got on my British passport. I am now in application for an Irish one, please outline my new rights etc for applications under my Irish Passport? Can I still apply even though I may have just got my Irish passport

Thanks

Once you get your Irish passport, this will identify you as being a citizen of a European Economic Area (EU + Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) country. As such a person, you are entitled to exercise certain rights in the UK and these are automatically extended to your immediate family, including your spouse, irrespective of what nationality she is.

In your particular circumstances, your wife is already in the UK having entered as the spouse of a British citizen. When her current two-year visa expires, she would normally have to apply for indefinite leave to remain at a cost of at least £750.00 plus the associated cost of either passing the Life in the UK test or sitting the ESOL with Citizenship course. However, as the spouse of a citizen of an EEA country, your wife can apply to the Home Office for permission to stay free of charge, and she doesn't need to pass any English language/citizenship test.

The down side is that she has to start from scratch again, so the Home Office will grant her a residence card which is valid for 5 years and only after that time can she apply for indefinite leave to remain. However, she can continue to work and any studies she does undertake should be free as she is the spouse of an EEA national.

If you want to go down this route, then, upon receipt of your Irish passport, download form EEA2 from the Home Office website and send it in with evidence of your Irish nationality, marriage, and that you are working in the UK. They will then issue a residence card for which the current waiting time is 6 months.

If your wife wants to ultimately qualify for naturalisation as a British citizen, she will only be able to do so after 6 years and will then have to take either the Life in the UK test, or have sat an ESOL with Citizenship course. Your right to British citizenship does not change.

Scouse.

So the test etc seems tobe obligatory. Anyways will think on what yopu have said Scouse and thank you for your full and well guided reply.

CC

Spouses of EEA nationals do not need to sit the test in order to gain indefinite leave to remain, which the spouse of a British citizen has to. Once the spouse of an EEA national has had indefinite leave to remain for one year, they may choose to naturalise as a British citizen, but are under no compulsion to do so. In that sense, the language/citizenship qualification is not obligatory.

Scouse.

Nice one.

Thanks Scouse