Why Does Irish Immigration Service Make My Thai Wife Feel so Unwelcome?

Every year thousands of Irish people arrive in Thailand to enjoy a bit of time relaxing in a tropical paradise. Most of these will be given a visa upon arrival with no questions asked. My family travels to Ireland each year to visit our family. My wife is Thai and both my son and I have Irish passports. Each year my wife has to go to apply for her Irish visa months in advance and each time the hoops she has to jump through increases.

My wife has no plans to move to Ireland we are quite happy where we are. She has visited on numerous occasions though, and always sticks to the conditions of her visa. I want my son to enjoy his Irish heritage and to know his Irish family and this is the reason for these trips. Up until a few years ago my wife could have just applied for Irish citizenship just on the basis of our marriage; these days have changed and now we have to practically beg for a holiday visa.

I am a registered nurse and always do some agency work during my time home. I am good at my job and there are always shortages in hospitals. The Irish health care services rely on foreign staff to stay afloat; many of these foreign nurses have had no problem bringing their partners to live with them. I am an Irish national who struggles to get a holiday visa for his wife. I am not complaining here about the foreign nurses because they do a fantastic job; my complaint is against Irish immigration services.

The first year we applied for my wife's visa there were only a few documents required but the list is growing every year. I have been asked to provide financial records, copies of lots of other personal documents for myself and my son, as well as references from Ireland; I don't mind this so much but it is a chore. It can then take up to eight weeks to get a reply. I have already been warned that I may have to send some more financial documents; pieces of paper that I just don't have.

The Irish consulate in Bangkok has always been friendly with me and they do a great job considering their limited resources. I do think that the bureaucracy that has created all these hoops for my wife is a disgrace though. It just makes my wife feel so unwelcome; it is hard to explain to her why it is so hard for her to go to my country yet so easy for me to stay in hers. I feel ashamed because I want her to have good feelings about my home. Every year I worry that the visa will be denied. One year my son may have to say goodbye to his trips to Ireland and so will my wife.