Visas and Work Permits

VISAS
Before setting off, I made sure that my passport was valid until for at least 6 months after the end of my contract, and I found out that as a Canadian, I do not need a visa to enter the country. This does not mean that I can enter Ireland and stay indefinitely, however (more on that in the next section). You can check out the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service website to see what the visa situation is for your country of origin.

WORK PERMITS + HOSTING AGREEMENTS
Even though I was recruited by the university, most everyone planning to work in Ireland requires a work permit. Check into this early, because at last count, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment noted that they are just now getting to applications that arrived over 3 months ago. The Department processes applications in the order they are received, and the following link shows you where you might be in the cue: Current Processing Dates. And oh ya, the permit is not cheap, either. One alternative, if you are 18-35 years old, is to apply for a work permit through SWAP. It's a bit cheaper, and they help you through the process both before and after your arrival.

Things are a little different for researchers; my employer provided a hosting agreement at no cost to myself, which is a kind of work permit created by the EU exclusively for researchers. I made sure that the hosting agreement was in my hands well before I had to leave Canada, and so far I've had to pull it out at the airport, the bank, and even at my institution to prove I was working there! If you go this route, you'll need to send your institution two passport photos. It's not easy to find the link to hosting agreements on the above website, because it is housed under the section on Enterprise, Science, and Technology. You can find it here. You're on your own if you are searching for similar goverment sites for other European countries, but at least you now know this kind of agreement exists!

One small but very important point about the hosting agreement: you can bring along your children and spouse under this agreement, but you must provide the authorities with a marriage certificate for the latter. The definition of spouse in Canada is much broader, with common-law and same-sex couples having most of the same advantages and obligations as legally married couples. I understand that common-law does not cut it for purposes of the Irish hosting agreement, but I am not sure what they would do if presented with a marriage certificate by a same-sex couple legally married in Canada, seeing that Ireland does not currently allow same-sex marriage, despite the public's growing support for it.