Emergency visas change to priority announced by Minister for Justice

The Minister for Justice announced today that the Department will expand the categories of priority/emergency visas being processed. The new categories are:

• Essential family reunification
• People who have been granted an employment permit and are travelling for essential business or employment purposes

From today the Department will resume processing all Long Stay ‘D’ Visa join family applications and preclearance applications, including for De Facto Partners of Irish Nationals, and Critical Skills Employment Permit Holders. Short stay visas are currently not being accepted except for cases that fall under the priority/emergency criteria.

The Department provides the following guidance as to what Priority/Emergency cases will continue to be accepted and processed to include:

• People travelling for business/employment purposes and granted an employment permit by Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment to meet an enterprise’s key business;
• patients travelling for imperative medical reasons;
• transport workers or transport service providers, including drivers of freight vehicles carrying goods for use in the territory as well as those merely transiting;
• pupils, students and trainees who travel abroad on a daily basis and Third-country nationals travelling for the purpose of 3rd level study;
• Join Family applications;
• Preclearance applications from De Facto Partner of an Irish National, De Facto Partner of a Critical Skills Employment Permit Holder, or of a non EEA Researcher on a Hosting Agreement and Family members looking to join a UK National in Ireland;
• persons travelling for imperative family or business reasons;
• Persons entitled to avail of the provision of the EU Free Movement Directive;
• diplomats, staff of international organisations and people invited by international organisations whose physical presence is required for the well-functioning of these organisations, military personnel and police officers, and humanitarian aid workers and civil protection personnel in the exercise of their functions;
• passengers in transit;
• seafarers;
• journalists, when performing their duties.

People seeking to join family members will include all Long Stay ‘D’ Visa join family applications (including third country national family members of Irish nationals and persons exercising free movement under the EU Directive), and Preclearance applications for: De Facto Partners of an Irish National; De Facto Partners of a Critical Skills Employment Permit Holder, or of a non EEA Researcher on a Hosting Agreement; and non EEA family members looking to join a UK National in Ireland.

All travellers arriving into Ireland must continue to comply fully with the public health measures required by law, including completing a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form, pre-arrival PCR test and quarantine in a designated facility or at home, as appropriate.

Should you require assistance with applications for Citizenship and naturalisation, International Protection, general immigration matters or visa applications, please contact Stephen Kirwan (stephen.kirwan@kodlyons.ie) of this office.