Work Document Translation for Ireland

The Employment Permit and the Permission to Enter Are Two Separate Applications

The most distinctive feature of going to Ireland for work is that the employment permit and the permission to enter and reside are separate applications. The employment permit is obtained first, from the relevant government department, and it relates to the candidate working for a named employer in a named position. Once the permit has been granted, the visa and entry formalities run on a separate track, and residence registration follows arrival in the country. For the candidate this three-stage structure means submitting the same documents at different times to different bodies. The difficulty that arises most often in practice is that documents handed in at the first stage have gone out of date by the next one; the timing with which criminal record and civil registry documents are obtained therefore needs careful planning.

What the Statement of Accuracy and the Office Stamp Do

Ireland has no sworn translator regime; in official applications a signed statement of accuracy from the translator or the office, together with its stamp, is what is accepted. The statement is expected to carry the translator’s name, qualifications, contact details and the date. Flexible as that looks, it creates a responsibility: since the official examining the document can verify matters against what the statement says, a statement with contact details missing or out of date weakens the credibility of the document. Notarisation may also be required on top in certain procedures; which procedures those are should be put to the body concerned.

In Regulated Professions, the QQI Assessment Is Not Registration

NARIC Ireland, within QQI, provides a comparison showing where a foreign diploma sits in the Irish framework. That document is useful to an employer and to the immigration unit, but it confers no right to practise: in fields such as healthcare, teaching and engineering, registration with the relevant professional body is required in addition. A registration file will usually ask for the curriculum, records of placement or practical training, and evidence of experience. The mistake candidates fall into is treating the comparison document as a substitute for professional registration. Our document types page sets out the general scope of this set of papers.

Which Documents Belong to Which Stage

Stage	Who you deal with	Key documents
Employment permit	The competent government department	Job offer, diploma, experience
Professional registration	The relevant professional body	Curriculum, placement records
Visa / entry	The Irish consulate	Criminal record certificate, identity documents
Residence registration	INIS	The permit decision, proof of address

The Ground of Refusal Encountered Most Often

At the employment permit stage the negative outcome seen most often is that the documents do not make clear that the candidate’s experience meets the requirements of the post. A social security employment record shows the length of service, but where there is no detailed letter from the employer describing the duties performed, the assessor cannot make the connection. The second frequent ground is a missing statement section in the translations; the third, inconsistencies of name and date between documents. All three can be headed off while the file is still being put together.

How Family Members’ Documents Enter the Process

A good proportion of those going to Ireland to work plan to move with their family, and in that case a second set of documents joins the work file. The marriage certificate, the children’s birth certificates and the civil registry extract form the core of it. These are prepared in the same way as the employee’s own papers, that is with a statement of accuracy and, where needed, an apostille. The mistake commonly made in practice is to leave the family documents until long after the employee’s file is complete; yet some of them are subject to a currency requirement and have to be obtained again. When the family applies depends on the point the employee has reached in the permit process.

The second thing to watch is consistency of names. Where a candidate’s surname has changed on marriage, the diploma, the social security employment record and the passport may carry different surnames. The civil registry extract showing the change of surname then has to be translated and added to the file as well; otherwise the documents cannot be tied to a single person. Documents needed to enrol the children in school come up after the move and generally comprise a record of attendance from the previous school together with a report or an academic transcript. These too need translating where they were drawn up in Turkish, but they belong to the school enrolment file rather than the immigration one.

Another feature peculiar to Ireland is that the employment permit is tied to a particular employer. If the candidate wishes to change employer while the permit is running, the matter may be reassessed and a fresh file built with the new employer’s documents. That means translations of qualifications and experience may well be needed again later, so it is worth keeping both the original copies and digital copies of them. For documents such as a diploma or a curriculum, a translation with a statement of accuracy holds good years afterwards; only those documents subject to a currency requirement need renewing. The same logic applies on the professional registration track: once registration has been granted, a change of employer does not affect it. Keeping the documents in an orderly archive is a simple habit, often neglected, that markedly reduces both the time and the cost of a second application.

This page is for general information; since employment permit categories and the conditions for professional registration can change, confirm the current requirements from the official announcements of the government department concerned and of INIS. You can request a quote for your documents, see the fees on our pricing page and compare other countries in the country directory.