Immigration Service Delivery (ISD) has issued an urgent notice advising that its Burgh Quay Registration Office will be closed to the public on Wednesday 14 October due to planned industrial action in the wider civil service. All biometric registration and re-entry visa appointments booked for that day have been automatically rescheduled. The Burgh Quay office is the primary site where non-EEA nationals living in Dublin register for Irish Residence Permits (IRPs). A single-day closure risks creating a backlog of up to 900 appointments, many of which are time-sensitive for employment and travel. ISD says applicants holding ‘return slips’ may attend on any alternative weekday up to the expiry date stamped on their slip, without rebooking online. Multinational employers should immediately audit staff whose IRPs expire in October, advise them to print the ISD notice and encourage early attendance on alternative days to avoid over-stay liability. Where travel is booked for mid-October, companies may need to issue employee support letters explaining the force-majeure closure when boarding flights. The action highlights ISD’s dependency on manual in-person processing despite a 2024 commitment to expand the online IRP renewal portal nationwide. Union sources told media that further stoppages are possible if pay talks fail, so HR teams should prepare contingency plans for November and December. ISD has apologised for the inconvenience and directed queries to its Customer Service Portal, which remains unaffected.
Source: Irish Immigration Service
