By Jide Jatto

The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS) recently announced the scrapping of re-entry visas for many immigrants in Ireland in what should be seen as a very welcome development.

Having an immigration registration card, whether the GNIB or the new IRP card, should suffice moving forward from 13 May for visa-required nationals who hold a valid card and permission to remain.

According to the INIS: “This brings Ireland in line with other EU member states. Over 40,000 people annually will benefit from this change.”

Before this announcement, every immigrant from a visa-requiring country was required to be in possession of a re-entry visa to travel out of Ireland. The scheme was widely criticised for being inconvenient on more ways than one. Apart from the cost (€100 for each re-entry visa) and only being valid for the duration of the holder’s GNIB card, the wait times involved were often atrocious.

According to Sanjay Shende, author of an online petition regarding such re-entry visas on ipetitions.com: “The risk of handing over one’s passport for the stamping of a re-entry visa for the expected duration of five to six weeks is unnecessarily risky and can cause many complications, including loss of a vital document in transit.”

I myself am in a job that could require travel at times, so the previous process has been a major source of frustration. The world and especially the business world is increasingly a global village, and mobility is a massive part of being an employee in such a world. Having the administrative burden of visa applications is cumbersome enough; having to add a re-entry visa on top of that just brings more unneeded complications.

But with this new move, Ireland can be said to be making giant strides in conforming to what is seen as the norm in many fellow EU member states.

Also, with the recent improvements being made in the security features of the new IRP card, and enhancing the registration process of immigrants, Irish immigration seems to heading in the right direction.

With a future lurking where we will be the only English-speaking members of the EU, we will attract even more skilled labour, and our immigration service looks in prime position to handle what we have coming.

__

Jide Jatto is an IT professional from Dublin.