Garda measures aim to tackle long visa queues

Meaures are being introduced this week to counter long queues outside the Garda National Immigration Bureau on Burgh Quay, according to the Department of Justice.

The announcement comes after hundreds of foreign nationals queued overnight in Dublin city centre last week for work, study and re-entry visas.

A Garda statement said: “Commencing this Wednesday, new registrations will be dealt with on Monday and Tuesday each week. Wednesday to Friday is reserved for renewal of registrations ie for those who have an existing GNIB card.”

"Additional staff resources are being deployed to increase the capacity of the Garda National Immigration Bureau to deal with persons seeking to register their immigration status.

“Opening hours are extended to include weekends to deal with the increased volume of persons attending the offices.”

The steps, which come into effect today, mean students from several Dublin universities who are registering for the first time or seeking to renew their registrations will not have to queue at the bureau and Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service office in Dublin.

The update, due on the garda.ie website this afternoon, requests students from Dublin City University, the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Dublin Institute of Technology and its constituent colleges do not queue outside the public office on Burgh Quay.

The statement says: “Separate arrangements are being put in place to register students of these colleges later in the autumn and these arrangements will be announced shortly.”

Hundreds of people began queuing outside the immigration bureau early on Monday morning, with some turning up at 9.30pm on Sunday, camping overnight to ensure they would receive one of the sought-after tickets from the office.

By 6.30am on Monday, the queue stretched around the block, doubling up into a second line with more than 700 people.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice told The Irish Times in June 2014 the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service planned to introduce an online booking system for appointments .

One year later, the department said the online service was at “an advanced stage and final testing of the system is now taking place”.

Edel McGinley, director of Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, described the queuing as “disgraceful”, saying the Government needed to treat new arrivals to Ireland with “respect and dignity”.

“We invite people here and don’t treat them properly. It’s about planning. This is the student time of year so there’s going to be extra pressure. If we don’t have the system in place we should be putting more people in to respond.”

Fatima Arrioja from Mexico set up camp at the top of the queue at 9.30pm on Sunday, determined to get a ticket after she was turned away last week.

“I had a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, we’re helping each other,” says Ms Arrioja, gesturing to the group of young women around her. “I didn’t sleep, you can’t sleep out here. It’s very cold.

"You could expect this to happen in Mexico but not in Ireland. It's supposed to be a first world country. We're in Europe and the fact that you have to do this, it's difficult to comprehend."

Gladys Akognon arrived from Clonlee, Co Meath, with her children at 6.30am to renew her teenage son’s visa. She cannot leave the house any earlier due to her six-year-old daughter’s serious disabilities.

“It would be very difficult for me to come back again tomorrow and pull my child out of bed at 5am. I might run out of stuff for her today and may have to run to Temple Street. Most of the equipment I brought with me will not last the day.”

Faisal Zahoor and Tania Malik began queuing with their 13-month-old baby daughter Haadia at 4am. They left Carlow at 2.30am after they failed to get a ticket last week after queuing from 5am.

Ms Malik, who is a software engineer at UCD and who moved to Ireland from Pakistan four years ago, says without family in Ireland they must bring their daughter with them.

“We have no other option, we are living here alone,” said Ms Malik. “All our extended family, her grandmothers, grandfathers, all are in Pakistan. She goes to crèche, but the crèche times are from 7.30am. It’s very painful for her, her sleep time and everything stops.”

Angela Zhang from China, who has lived in Ireland for 13 years, arrived in the queue shortly after 3.30am.

“It was terrible here,” said Ms Zhang. “It’s really cold and very noisy, and there’s lots of people passing. You don’t have any food, anything to drink, and you can’t really find a toilet.”

“It makes me feel homeless,” she added, as she packed away the sleeping bag she used to keep warm overnight. “It’s a very sad feeling, you don’t feel like you have equal human rights, especially when you’ve been in the country for so long. It feels unfortunately as if your rights are just being removed.”