A case of the Mondays

Sorry for the delay between posts. I have gotten pretty busy with school, especially my studio (more on that in following posts). Also, this was Halloween weekend, a favorite holiday of mine. I dressed as a very convincing and scary vampire (specifically Eric from the HBO show True Blood but it is not too well known here). I had fun dressing up three nights in a row although I was in the small minority dressing up on Thursday and Friday. Halloween night is a pretty big deal here though, I began to hear fireworks start as soon as it got dark (about 5:30 here). The city was full of people dressed up on Saturday and a friend of mine and I ventured out of the City Centre to a huge, impressive club called the Wright Venue which is near the airport north of the city. The club is the finest in Ireland and because of my well-connected new friends, we were able to get into VIP. The club was so large that we all ended up getting split up, but the night was fun regardless.

The purpose of this post, however, is to describe the horrendous process of registering as an immigrant here in Ireland. I was told upon my arrival that I needed to get a number of documents arranged and take them to the Garda (Gaelic for police) Immigration Office. Getting the documents was easy but registering has been a nightmare. Before finally getting registered today, I had been to the office three times and been met with a sign explaining that all the tickets (like numbers at a butcher) for the day had been distributed. The last time I went, I made sure to make it in early. I arrived at 8:45 when the office opened at 8 and I still missed getting a ticket!

Today, I realized why. I recently met a Brazilian girl, Lara, who also had to go to immigration. She told me she was advised to arrive at 7:30 to queue. So I went with her today at 7:30 and found a line that stretched around 3/4 of the block. I thought that the line outside was to enter the office at 8 AM. I came to learn that the line was for the tickets which were given away at the door. So we were forced to wait outside, on one of the coldest and windiest days I have experienced since being here. For an hour and a half!

After getting the ticket (no. 231), I was told to come back at 11:30. Lara was turned away for not having an updated bank statement. We left to run some errands and I returned around 11:30 to find they were only half way to my number! Frustrated, I left to eat lunch at home. I returned around 1:30 and they were still far from calling my number. Fortunately, I was able to get some schoolwork done with my iPod on. My iPod was the saving grace because the office (which I now refer to as the 7th circle of hell) was full of screaming children. After finally getting up to the window, it came time to pay for my registration and I could not find my Irish bank account card! I had left it in the ATM at the bank this morning! I ended up having to use my Chase debit card with a very unfavorable exchange rate. Regardless, I was finally through. Or so I thought. The next step was to wait for them to call my name. So this time, no iPod. It took another HOUR for them to call my name. So after arriving at 7:30 and waiting all day I was finally out of hell at 5 PM. And all I got to show for it is a registration ID card!

The point of this story is to point out the inefficiencies involved in the bureaucratic process. I have witnessed these inefficiencies in my years as an intern for local governments but I was painful aware of these today while waiting in the cold and amongst many other disgruntled immigrants. Is there anyway to have a democracy without these inefficiencies (i.e. "red tape")? I would argue no, definitely not. However, there is always room for improvement. Ireland was hit with a wave of immigration after the onset of Celtic Tiger (their economic surge of the late 90's and early 00's). These people came from all over the world looking for jobs and finding an accommodating job market. All this was in light of the shrinking population and stagnant economy the Irish were used to. It seems like they are still unprepared for the amount of immigrants they are receiving. I mean, having only one immigration office in your country's capital is unacceptable in my opinion. And considering only immigrants from outside of the EU are required to register and get VISAs (a minority of the immigrants) and there are STILL significant problems, I think there should be better services directed towards their surging population.