I am a refugee – when can I apply for naturalisation?

Under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act there are a number of niche categories where the reckonable residency can be reduced from five years, which is the usual, to three years. One of those examples is someone who has been declared a refugee. One of the issues that arises is whether you can claim Refugee status after you’ve been declared or is it back dated to the date that you applied. Under the Geneva Convention it’s backdated to the date of application and we would be advising anyone who is a refugee to use that as your starting point for calculating the three years recordable residence.