You guys have NO IDEA how lucky you are with these timelines !! I envy you a lot ...!!

Currently, our esteemed civil service are taking almost 40 months to process citizenship applications, this on top of the fact that you have to be here a minimum of 3 years after marriage (5 years if not married to an Irish citizen), it can take up to 9 and a bit years to acquire Irish citizenship, showing no absences from the country for longer than 1 month (I think), and ALWAYS paying tax. The minute you do not pay tax, the clock starts again.

And all the while, every time you want to travel outside you need the visa, if your kids go to college, the college can turn around and whack you with fees of €8,000 per year on average while Irish kids pay a registration fee of appx €600 per year average, your access to the public systems are not as free as those citizens who are paying a hell of a lot less tax than you.

(By the way, for the purposes of this rant, "you" is not pointing at anyone here in particular. I just feel for those Filipinos and other foreign nationals who are here in my country minding their own business, paying their taxes and working hard while our overpaid, underworked civil servants do their level best to make life difficult for them ..... I am proud to be Irish, but our government can sometimes make me want to scream ....)